Meng Zhu

Meng Zhu is a Professor of Marketing at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, serving as Interim Department Head. She previously held professorships at Johns Hopkins University, where she earned multiple awards, including the Dean's Award for Faculty Excellence (2016-2019). Her research focuses on health decision-making, human-AI collaboration, and welfare loss solutions, funded by NIH, NSF, and NIA grants. She teaches Strategic Marketing and Judgment and Decision Making, and advises doctoral students across institutions.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Marketing & Social and Decision Sciences (Carnegie Mellon University, 2011)
• M.S. in Industrial Administration (Carnegie Mellon University, 2008)
• B.A. in Comparative Literature (Nanjing University, 2001)

Research Interests: Her work bridges consumer behavior, healthcare systems, and technology. Recent studies explore barriers to secondhand smoke reduction, AI’s impact on mental health access, and beauty bias in professional evaluations. She employs experimental, econometric, and AI-based methodologies.

Awards:

• National Science Foundation Grant (2025-2028)
• Alliance for a Healthier World’s Impact Grant (2022-2024)
• President’s Frontier Award Semifinalist (2019)

Advising & Grants: Supervised 11 Ph.D. students at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins. Secured over $5M in grants, including NIH-funded projects on healthcare overuse and asthma interventions. Served as Co-chair for AMA Doctoral Dissertation Award and Co-editor of Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (Healthcare Track).

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams on projects involving telemedicine, AI ethics, and health equity, partnering with organizations like the San Francisco VA Health Care System and Merck.