Susan Dunnett

Susan Dunnett is Personal Chair of Consumer Culture and Society and Director of Education at the University of Edinburgh Business School, Department of Marketing. She joined as Lecturer in Marketing in 2010 after completing ESRC-funded PhD research at the University of Stirling.

• MA English Language and Literature, University of St Andrews (1999)
• MSc Marketing, University of Stirling (2003)
• PhD Marketing, University of Stirling (2009)

Her research centers on consumer vulnerability and coping, with particular focus on healthcare consumerism, illness experiences, and collective identity practices. Using interpretivist methodologies including participant observation and ethnographic approaches, she examines how marginalized groups navigate consumption systems. Current projects investigate therapeutic consumption networks and resilience in long-term cancer patients.

Analysis of her 49 research outputs reveals dominant themes in consumer vulnerability (39% fingerprint weight), lived experience (26%), and consumer culture (19%). Her work bridges healthcare sociology, religious studies, and marketing theory, with increasing emphasis on decolonial perspectives and intergenerational identity transmission.

As PI for ESRC-funded projects including 'A coaching approach to building resilience in people living with long term cancer' (2021-2023) and 'Generative AI in education' (2025), she secures substantial research funding. She serves as Undergraduate Senior Tutor and coordinates the Brand Culture honors option.

Her media engagements include expert commentary on Apple's retail strategy (Edinburgh Evening News, 2014) and Sugar Puffs rebranding (The Scotsman, 2014), demonstrating public impact of her consumer culture expertise.