About Me

Dr. Tessa Garcia-Collart is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the University of Missouri-St Louis. Dr. Garcia-Collart holds a PhD in Marketing from Florida International University, an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management (knowledge unit of Arizona State University) and completed her graduate internship in Geneva, Switzerland. She also holds a BA in Marketing and International Business from Universidad Tecnologica Centroamericana in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  

Her primary research areas include consumer health and well-being and brand communications in digital media. Her research has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Marketing Letters, and Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series. A related manuscript, resulting from a Transformative Consumer Research collaboration has been invited to a revision at the Journal of Consumer Affairs. In addition, she has authored a chapter on the influence of Hispanic culture on marketing. She has presented her work in premier marketing academic conferences including AMA, AMS and ACR, as well as in multiple universities around the globe, and corporations such as The Coca-Cola Company headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.  

Dr. Garcia-Collart's research has been recognized with multiple awards, grants and fellowships. Her work on emojis and the consumer-brand relationship was recently recognized with the Best Paper Award by the Marketing Management Association (2022). She is an AMA-Sheth Doctoral Fellow (2018) and is the recipient of a Marketing Science Institute grant (2018), as well as a University of Missouri Faculty Research Grant (2021) to fund her research initiatives. She was awarded the UGS Provost Award for Best Paper at Florida International University (2020), the SCP Ethnic Travel Scholarship (2018), the Russell V. Ewald Award for Academic Excellence (presented by the McKnight Fellowship, 2017), and the American Marketing Association Valuing Diversity Award (2017).   

In addition, Dr. Garcia-Collart currently serves as a member of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing Impact Taskforce, and is also an active member of the Marketing Advisory Board and Graduate Studies Committee at the University of Missouri-St Louis. She also served as President and Vice-President of the Marketing Doctoral Students Association at The PhD Project, an organization that supports minority representation in business academia.   

Prior to entering academia, she worked in brand marketing in Fortune 500 companies, including Shell Oil and Stanley Black & Decker. Outside of academia, she enjoys traveling the world with family and friends, and is an avid Peloton enthusiast.