Maria M. Garcia

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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

Areas of Expertise

• Crisis management
• Digital marketing
• Sustainability

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, where she worked as a foreign correspondent specializing in war and crises, while also managing the digital marketing and media divisions. 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. Since that time, she has mentored many FIU students and introduced them to key business leaders, worked alongside non-profits in Asia, consulted entrepreneurs in Africa, and reviewed research manuscripts for academic journal publication. One of her main goals is to publish her own book based on her experience as a war reporter and photojournalist in thd Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring (i.e., revolutions).

She currently teaches at FIU’s College of Business as an Associate Teaching Professor in International Marketing, primarily teaching undergraduate courses in digital marketing, social media marketing, and promotion strategy. García helped design FIU's Masters in Marketing graduate program and was one of the first faculty members to teach and mentor graduate students, where she taught eMarketing, IMC, and digital marketing. When she first joined FIU in 2012, she 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 while teaching consumer behavior and international marketing at the College of Business. Prior to her time at FIU, she taught various marketing courses at the American University in Dubai, where she served 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