Kent Nakamoto

Kent Nakamoto is Adjunct professor of the Institute of Communication and Health at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). He is also the R.B. Pamplin Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean for Research in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University). He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, two Masters of Arts--one in Arts Administration and the other one in Marketing--at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his Ph.D in Business at the Stanford University.
Before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he served on the faculties at UCLA, the University of Arizona, and Colorado-Boulder. His research on the consumer decision-making process and its implications for marketing strategies has been twice recognized with the William F. O’Dell Award from the Journal of Marketing Reserach. He also gained an award for the best article in the Journal of Consumer Research for research on the interplay of social structures and individual motivations to manage the flow of information in social networks. His recent research and publications focus on the level of cultural knowledge of consumer health and empowerment, argument in health communication, and the epidemiology of abuse of prescription drugs.