Ashlee Humphreys is an Associate Professor at Medill. Trained as a sociologist, Humphreys examines core topics in consumer behavior and marketing strategy. Her research investigates the role of legal and cultural institutions in creating markets, the influence of language on consumer judgments of legitimacy, and the process of consumer co-creation. She is the author of “Social Media: Enduring Principles” (Oxford UP 2016), and her work has been published in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research and Sociology Compass. She also serves as an associate editor at the Journal of Consumer Research.
Humphreys completed both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Northwestern. She graduated with a B.A. in economics and philosophy from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and she received her Ph.D. in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Management with a focus on cultural sociology in 2008.

Since joining the faculty at Northwestern, Humphreys has collected many awards. She was named one the Marketing Science Institute’s Young Scholars of 2015 and an ASG Faculty Honor Roll member in 2012 and 2016. Humphreys also received the Sidney J. Levy award at the 2010 Consumer Culture Theory conference for her work, “Semiotic Structure and the Legitimation of Consumption Practices: The Case of Casino Gambling” and was runner up for the Maynard Award for best paper in the Journal of Marketing.