Consumer Insights & Business Innovation Center

Our Team

Ali Besherat headshot

Ali Besharat, PhD

Co-director and Research Faculty

Ali Besharat is a professor of marketing. His research includes two main domains: marketing communications, and judgment and decision making. Ali’s scholarly work has been published in many prestigious marketing journals as well as popular media outlets, including Time, CNN Money, Yahoo!, Business Insider, The Week, WalletHub, 9NEWS, Denver Post and Fox31, among others.

Melissa Akaka headshot

Melissa Archpru Akaka, PhD

Co-director and Research Faculty

Melissa Archpru Akaka is a professor of marketing. Her research investigates the co-creation of consumption experiences and collaborative innovation and entrepreneurship within dynamic business ecosystems. Melissa’s scholarly work has been published in a variety of academic journals, and her work was recently recognized for being highly cited (in the top 1%) by Thompson and Reuters.

Ana Babic Rosario, PhD

Research Faculty

Ana Babic Rosario is an associate professor of marketing and joined DU in Fall 2016 after completing her PhD in marketing at HEC Paris, France. Her research centers on electronic word of mouth and online social interaction, and it has been published in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Michael Myers

Subject Matter Expert

Michael Myers has mote than15 years of experience in online marketing, product strategies and technology. He is the CEO of CRUCES, a consulting firm that enables businesses to utilize social media and mobile marketing as business drivers.

Dan Hoffman

Subject Matter Expert

Dan Hoffman’s project experience includes the use of advanced statistical techniques to expand the clarity, insight and ability to execute the research findings and includes many leading tools and techniques: cross-tabulations, statistical tests of significance, time-series, regressions, segmentation, perceptual mapping, conjoint and Max Diff.

How to Engage

Advisory Board

Company representatives from a broad range of industries can support broad strategic planning efforts.

Corporate Partners

Corporate partners can engage with talented students, help to design and teach in apprenticeship programs, and learn about the latest technologies and methodologies to increase business innovativeness and success.

Client Projects

Companies seeking research support can leverage student talent and faculty oversight to collect and analyze data and report findings in a variety of ways. Projects start at 25 hours for $2,500. Each project is planned and scoped with a CiBiC co-director, supervised by a Daniels faculty member and executed by students.

Contact Us

  • Tell us about your organization and what you hope to accomplish in working with CiBiC.