Abigail Green

Abigail Green joined the marketing Ph.D. program in Fall 2026. She earned her B.A. and M.S. in economics from the University of South Carolina. During that time, she interned with several organizations, including Coca-Cola Consolidated, the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, and Spirax Sarco, gaining experience in marketing and social media management. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Abigail earned an M.S. in marketing from Clemson University, where she supported research at the Media Forensics Hub on financial and romance scams, as well as consumer interactions with artificial intelligence chatbots. Her research interests center on consumer behavior, digital marketing, and social media, particularly within the contexts of fashion, retail, and health and wellness.

Destin Hardesty

Destin Hardesty is a first-year marketing Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business. She earned her undergraduate degrees in marketing and psychology from the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on consumer behavior, with interests in digital marketing, sensory marketing, visual processing and debiasing stereotypes. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Hardesty gained professional experience as a junior Salesforce analyst at Coastal Cloud and worked as a marketing and social media intern for a financial firm and a financial podcast.

Laurel Johnston

Email: [email protected]

Laurel Johnston entered the marketing Ph.D. program in fall 2023. Her research interests fall in marketing strategy, with current projects focusing on customer data privacy, service recovery and the use of customer data for social good. She is skilled in consumer research and has supported projects in music and gender stereotypes. Johnston is a 2024 AMA MPPC Junior Scholar and 2024 MSI Marketing Strategy Doctoral Scholar. She is a graduate of Western Kentucky University with a B.S. in strategic marketing and a certificate in applied data analytics. Johnston’s professional experience includes public communications for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, digital marketing and consulting with various nonprofit organizations.

Connect with Laurel on LinkedIn.

Chun Wang

Chun Wang entered Haslam’s Ph.D. program in marketing in fall 2025. Her research focuses on consumer behavior, with a particular interest in digital marketing and how visual cues in marketing communications shape consumers’ perceptions, judgments, and decisions. Prior to joining the doctoral program, she earned a master’s degree in marketing from Shanghai University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications.