Biography
- Professor Girard has been teaching at Penn State Altoona since August 2004. In the past, she has taught Consumer Behavior, Marketing Research, Principles of Marketing, Intermediate Social Media Marketing, Advanced Social Media Marketing, Brand Management, Contemporary American Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Entrepreneurial Marketing, Leadership and Motivation, Data Analytics, and Supervised research courses. Besides teaching junior and senior undergraduate courses and conducting academic research, Dr. Girard serves as a marketing research consultant to businesses. Through either direct work experience or consulting, she has gained experience and know-how in various industries including real estate, banking, city government, public libraries, restaurant, auditing, software, retail and supermarket, sporting goods, manufacturing, hotel, biotechnology and therapeutics medicine. She has conducted numerous market research studies for profit and nonprofit organizations.
- She holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration with an option in Finance from California State University, Hayward (East Bay), an M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Business Administration with emphasis in Marketing from Florida Atlantic University.
- Dr. Girard's research interests include consumer-based brand equity, product classes, retailer attributes, perceived risk, shopping orientations, patronage intentions, Internet security, privacy, and trust requirements, corporate social responsibility, logo design and testing, and e-commerce and leadership strategies. Her research has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Journal of Computer Mediated Communications, the Journal of Business Psychology, the Journal of Internet Research, the Journal of Business and Leadership, The International Journal of the Academic Business World, The Journal of International Business Research, The SAM Advanced Management Journal, Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, the International Journal of Education Management., and the International Journal of Bank Management. She has presented papers at numerous academic national and international conferences including the Direct Marketing Educators' Foundation (DMEF), Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators (ACME), Association of Marketing Theory and Practice (AMTP), Marketing Management Association (MMA), and American Marketing Association (AMA).
- Professor Girard is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi, and Golden Key Honor Societies. She is a recipient of Distinguished Paper Award at the 10th Annual Marketing Management Association Fall Educators' Conference in September 2005, and a Best Paper Award at the 2007 Academic Business World International Conference in May 2007.