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International business major Francisco Wang Yu ’22 and business professor Raghabendra KC ’13 recently presented preliminary findings of their collaborative research project titled “Racial Composition in Advertisement Materials and Its Subsequent Effects on Consumers” at the Academy of Economics and Finance Conference (AEF). Their work won the coveted Edward Nissan Best Undergraduate Paper Award, marking the first time a Rollins undergraduate has ever done so in AEF’s 60-year history.

Through Rollins’ Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program, KC and Wang Yu surveyed 1,200 consumers for their study to determine whether or not diverse representation in advertising affects minority consumption. Since presenting their findings, they have continued to refine their research as the basis for Wang Yu’s honors thesis.

The presentation was made right before Wang Yu was accepted to the University of Cambridge’s top-rated MPhil program at the Judge Business School, of which KC is an alum. Wang Yu was inspired to apply thanks to his summer spent conducting research alongside KC.

“Pursuing a graduate degree was not something I initially planned to do right after my undergraduate studies,” says Wang Yu. “But the more I worked with Dr. KC for my thesis, the more we realized how passionate I was about marketing research focusing on consumer behavior.”

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