Faculty and ResearchExpert Guide

Education

• Ph.D. in Journalism
  University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
• Master of Science in Mass Communication
  Florida International University, Miami, Florida
• Bachelor of Arts in Communication
  University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois

Professional Activities

María M. García, Ph.D. teaches and conducts research on social media, digital marketing, and international marketing. Her research area consists of the role of social media and online platforms in shaping public opinion, user engagement and online activism between individuals and organizations in international markets, and conflicts and crises in brand reputation. She has earned five research awards for her work in these areas. She is also part of the editorial board at the Journal of Sustainability Management and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. García earned the 2013 CIBER Faculty Research Award, became a CIBER Research Associate, and received external funding from the Center for International Business Education and Research and the U.S. Congress in her efforts to create new initiatives between universities and think tanks in developed and emerging markets, particularly the U.S. and countries in the Middle East and North Africa, to further the exchange of knowledge between academia and the industry through the use of digital media. 

García possesses 12 years of international marketing and public relations experience, most of which were spent as a corporate communications manager with European multinational corporation EADS (i.e., Airbus Group) and Sabena technics. She also dedicated some of her career to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations as its Global Experts program and media manager. García served as a judge for the 2013 Google AdWords Latin America industry case and campaigns competition, a judge for the 2014 American Marketing Association case competition, and was invited to speak as a guest lecturer at the 2015 Global IP Valuation Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

While she currently teaches at FIU’s College of Business as an Instructor in International Marketing, primarily teaching undergraduate courses in digital marketing and graduate courses in integrated marketing communications, she spent also spent one year teaching a graduate course in global communications for Miami Ad School and FIU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication joint program. Prior to her time at FIU, she taught various marketing courses at the American University in Dubai as an assistant professor in marketing communications. She attributes her appreciation for academic research and teaching to her alma mater, the University of Missouri-Columbia, a top-tier R1 institution, where she earned a Ph.D. in journalism with a key concentration in strategic communications (e.g., marketing communications, advertising, and public relations) in new media (e.g., digital and social media, and mobile technology). She is a firm believer in higher education and its power to mobilize, inspire, and act as the catalyst for change in individuals as well as institutions.   

Courses Taught

• Consumer Behavior
• Digital Marketing
• E-Marketing
• Integrated Marketing Communication
• International Marketing
• Introduction to Marketing
• Promotion Strategy
• Social Media Marketing