Dr. Maria Kniazeva has a unique set of knowledge and experiences, having lived, worked and been educated in the United States, Russia and Estonia. A tenured Professor of Marketing at the University of San Diego, she used to work as an Executive Editor of an Estonian newspaper’s Russian-language edition and as a free-lance business consultant. Dr. Kniazeva earned her first degree, a Masters in Journalism, from St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) State University in Russia, and her PhD in Marketing from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. 

Dr. Kniazeva’s current research centers on the globalization of healthcare, with a specific focus on the designer body as a global product.  Her latest work “Here Comes the Doctor, or The Plastic Surgeon as an Agent of Fashion” analyzes the social media presence of medical doctors and was presented at a conference in Vienna, Austria in July 2017.

Having visited around sixty countries, Dr. Kniazeva has developed academic interests that focus on cross-cultural consumption in the global marketplace. She has published in academic journals and authored four book chapters, which demonstrate her expertise in Asia, Russia and Europe. A qualitative researcher, Dr. Kniazeva has produced four videographies that she presented at international marketing conferences in the US, Brazil, Japan, the UK and South Korea.

Dr. Kniazeva has been invited to speak on the cross-cultural issues of global healthcare to medical providers, governmental institutions and doctoral students in South Korea. She serves on the Editorial Boards of three international journals. Dr. Kniazeva also authored a book, “America Through the Eyes of a Russian Woman,” published in both Russian and English.