Marketing

Research Areas: marketing, consumer culture

Research Interests: ethnographic and interpretive study of: consumer culture in contexts that are culturally contentious; market system dynamics and market (de)legitimation; "wicked" problems in markets and marketing

Dr Huff’s primary research program focuses on American gun culture. This includes work on: digital and print advertising of firearms; ethical problems in gun marketing; how Americans understand the Second Amendment and the morality of armed self-defense; consumer relationships with firearms and armed self-defense practices, consumer interest groups, and the American gun market system. Other projects focus on the relationship between product design and market legitimation in the context of recreational cannabis, reusable menstrual products, and wearable technologies.

Her research has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Marketing Theory, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Consumer Affairs and Research in Consumer Behavior. She has presented research at conferences of the American Marketing Association, Association for Consumer Research, Consumer Culture Theory, and Marketing & Public Policy. Dr Huff's research has been covered in numerous outlets, including print media, such as Associated Press, The New York Times, Washington Post; television and radio interviews, including NBC Universal, Oregon Public Broadcasting and NPR member stations; magazines, such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Glamour, MotherJones, OSU's Terra; and invited op-eds and pieces in The Conversation. 

Dr Huff teaches case-based marketing courses in the MBA program, and at the undergraduate level. She has won teaching awards and the undergraduate and graduate levels, and has designed and taught courses in multiple modalities, including in-person, in-person/online hybrid, and online through OSU's nationally recognized Ecampus.

Dr Huff is an associate editor of Journal of Business Research, an editorial review board member at Journal of Consumer Research, and a manuscript review board member at Journal of Macromarketing. She was co-chair of the synchronous-hybrid 2022 Consumer Culture Theory Conference in Corvallis, Oregon, and serves as Associate Editor at the 2024 and 2025 Association for Consumer Research conferences. 

Prior to her academic career, Dr Huff was a financial analyst in the defense industry, and a general manager in the hospitality industry.