Overview
Career Interests
Research areas: American gun culture, firearms consumption and policy, gun violence prevention, eldercare, use of credit/debt, and ethical (sustainable, humane, and/or socially responsible) consumption
Research interests: consumer culture theory, identity construction and negotiation, responsibilization, and market systems
Her research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Marketing Management, and the Journal of Macromarketing.
Prior to her academic career, Professor Barnhart spent eight years in sales, customer service, and operations management in the personal emergency response industry, and two years as a research scientist in a molecular neurobiology lab.
Background
Education
University of Utah, David Eccles School of Business
Ph.D., Business Administration, August 2009
Major Discipline: Marketing
Dissertation: “Who Are You Calling Old? A Study of Old Age Construction and Value Creation in the Elderly Consumption Ensemble,” Co-chairs: Dr. Lisa Peñaloza, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales du Nord, France; and Dr. Teresa Pavia, University of Utah
University of Colorado, Boulder
Leeds School of Business
Doctoral Program in Marketing, August 2004 – July 2006
Stanford University
Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences, 1994
Conferred with departmental honors
Experience
College of Business, Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
September 2009 – present
Lifeline Systems, Inc. – Personal Response and Support Services
General Manager, Denver Regional Office, May 2001 – July 2004
Oversaw all functions of the regional office, including Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Operations, Billing, and Government Contracts.
Major Accomplishments:
• Launched company-wide initiative which reduced the annual rate of customer cancellations by over 20%. Developed and delivered seminar modules to train national distribution channel on this initiative and other sales and marketing strategies.
• Consistently rated best presenter at national company workshops focusing on marketing, sales, and operational excellence.
• Created a new referral marketing process for the Denver office which was later adopted nationally.
• Increased return on sales of the Denver office from 30% to 44%.
Operations Manager, Denver Regional Office, August 1999 – May 2001
TelCARE Systems, Inc. – Personal Emergency Response Services
Operations Manager, May 1997 – August 1999
Marketing Assistant, May 1996 – May 1997
Veterans’ Administration Medical Center, Denver
Research Assistant, Molecular Neurobiology, August 1994 – May 1996
Designed and carried out experiments investigating possible causes of schizophrenia.
Service
Marketing Program Director
College of Business Promotion and Tenure Committee Chair
Honors & Awards
2008 Dissertation Proposal Award, Marketing and Society Special Interest Group, American Marketing Association “Who are You Calling Old? Negotiating Agency in the Elderly Consumption Ensemble”
2008 University of Nebraska Mittelstaedt Doctoral Symposium Presenter,
“Negotiating Meaning in the Elderly Consumption Ensemble”
2007 AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium Fellow
Best Paper Award, Methods Track, 2007 Winter AMA Conference
“Rethinking Readiness: Development and Validation of a Reduced Form of the Technology Readiness Index” with Mark Ratchford
Gerald Hart Doctoral Research Fellowship, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, May – July 2006
2006 University of Houston Doctoral Symposium, discussant
Gerald Hart Doctoral Research Fellowship, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, May – July 2005