Dr. Deborah Heisley joined the CHIME Institute Board of Directors in 2001. She is currently Associate Professor of Marketing at California State University, Northridge. She received her Ph.D. from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University in 1990. She served on the faculty at The Anderson School at UCLA for ten years before joining CSUN in 2000.

Professor Heisley’s research interest is consumer behavior. She approaches consumer behavior with a sociological and anthropological perspective. She is primarily interested in meaning structures created by cultures, the symbolic meaning of goods, and the consumption experience. She examines these meanings in the context of culture, gender, status groups, and the family. In the field of marketing, Professor Heisley has widely published and presented her research. For detailed descriptions of her publications and presentations, her vita is linked to this site. Professor Heisley is a committed and excellent teacher with high quality standards for students. Her specialty is client-based projects. Client-based projects help students link theory to application and help the University build relationships with the business community.

Professor Heisley demonstrates commitment to her field, CSUN, and the community. She is a frequent reviewer for the Journal of Consumer Research and the Association for Consumer Research. She has organized conference sessions, tracks, and conferences. Since joining CSUN she has served as the Director of the Small Business Institute and as Faculty Advisor for the CSUN chapter of the American Marketing Association. She has also served on the CSUN Academic Senate, the Center for Community Service-Learning, the MBA Curriculum Committee, and the Introduction to Marketing course Quality Control Committee.

Professor Heisley actively serves the community of children with special needs and their parents. She sits on the Board of Directors for both the CSUN affiliated CHIME Institute that is a national model for educating children with special needs alongside their typically developing peers, and for The Frostig Center, a prestigious research and teaching institution in Pasadena for children with learning disabilities. She helped spearhead the creation of The Frostig Collection, which raised $120,000 profit in its first 8 months of operation to fund the hiring of a socials skills specialist for the Frostig School. She served two years on the School Based Management Board for Emelita St. School, LAUSD and helped spearhead a Library Campaign that resulted in the opening of a $140,000 Wonder of Reading library in October of 2000. This elementary school serves a diverse population with a high proportion of children who are under-privileged and children who have special needs.