Overview
Mary Frances Luce is the Interim Dean and Robert A. Ingram Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. In addition to being the first woman to serve as Fuqua’s dean, she is the first Fuqua alumnus to hold the position.
Fascinated by the influence of emotions on decision-making, Luce has enjoyed a 30-year career as a specialist in behavioral marketing. Her research interests lie in consumer behavior and medical decision-making, including how emotions can impact a patient’s health care decisions. She has taught students in all of Fuqua’s ten degree programs, including core marketing and elective health care marketing courses.
Luce has a strong and balanced track record of academic leadership, previously serving as Fuqua’s associate and senior associate dean of faculty for six years. She was also the associate vice president of Research & Innovation at Duke. Passionate about encouraging exceptional interdisciplinary research, she approached this role with a commitment to creating a supportive environment for Duke researchers in the areas of social and behavioral sciences, humanities and the arts.
In addition to her new role at Fuqua, Luce will serve on the Board of Trustees of Duke Kunshan University (DKU). She spent one year as DKU’s interim executive vice chancellor.
Before joining Fuqua’s faculty in 2004, Luce was on the faculty of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for ten years. She earned her Ph.D. in business administration with a concentration in marketing from Fuqua in 1994 and a bachelor’s degree from Ball State University in 1989.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
Product-facilitated conversations: When does starting a conversation by mentioning a product lead to better conversational outcomes?
Journal Article Journal of Consumer Psychology · April 1, 2024 This paper examines product-facilitated conversations. In three studies, we show that the products consumers publicly display influence how other consumers start conversations with them and how enjoyable and self-disclosing these conversations are. Study 1 ... Full text CiteThe Preference for Moderation Scale
Journal Article Journal of Consumer Research · April 1, 2021 We propose that individual differences in the value placed on the principle of moderation exist and influence many aspects of consumer decision-making. The idea that moderation is an important guiding norm of human behavior is prevalent throughout history ... Full text CiteCorrelations of trait and state emotions with utilitarian moral judgements.
Journal Article Cognition & emotion · February 2018 In four experiments, we asked subjects for judgements about scenarios that pit utilitarian outcomes against deontological moral rules, for example, saving more lives vs. a rule against active killing. We measured trait emotions of anger, disgust, sympathy ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
Neural Compensation and Economic Decision Making in Aging
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2007 - 2010Developing a Measure of Voluntary Consent for Protocol-Based Treatment Decision
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2006 - 2009View All Grants