Madhu Viswanathan

Madhu Viswanathan (B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering, IIT, Madras, 1985; Ph.D., Marketing, University of Minnesota, 1990) is Professor of Marketing, College of Business Administration, Loyola Marymount University (2019-), and Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1990-2019). His research programs are on measurement, and subsistence marketplaces. He has authored several books including Measurement Error and Research Design (Sage, 2005), Enabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces (Springer, 2008), Subsistence Marketplaces (2013), and Bottom-Up Enterprise (2016).  He pioneered the area of subsistence marketplaces, taking a bottom-up approach to poverty and marketplaces (www.business.illinois.edu/subsistence), through symbiotic academic-social enterprise. He founded and directs the Marketplace Literacy Project (www.marketplaceliteracy.org), pioneering consumer, entrepreneurial and sustainability literacy education that has reached more than 100,000 women across four continents.  He has taught courses on research methods, subsistence, and sustainability to thousands of students in-person and on-line. He has created innovative curricular content for educators and learners relating to bottom-up immersion, design, innovation and enterprise (www.subsistencemarketplaces.org). He teaches Business For Good for all incoming undergraduate students.  He is Founding Editor-In Chief, Subsistence Marketplaces – a journal and web portal (2021-). He has served on the Livelihoods Advisory Board of UNHCR. He served as Faculty Advisor for the online iMBA, University of Illinois (2015-16), leading the team that launched the program, designing and implementing key curricular policies and innovations. He has served as Chair, Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group, American Marketing Association; Secretary-Treasurer, Society for Consumer Psychology; Associate Editor, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing; and Director of Graduate Studies, Business Administration, University of Illinois. His work has been recognized with numerous awards.