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Ceridwyn King

Ceridwyn King

  • Professor
  • Dimond Family Dean of the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration
  • Editor-in-Chief, Services Marketing Quarterly

Faculty Area

Faculty Expertise

  • Hospitality and Services Design, Management and Operations
  • Marketing
  • Tourism

Contact

Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration

ck867@cornell.edu

Website

Biography

Ceridwyn King was appointed as the Dimond Family Dean of the Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration on July 1, 2026. Dean King is an accomplished hospitality leader and educator whose research focuses on service management, branding and marketing, with focus on the employee's role in delivering exceptional customer experiences. Her research combines theory and practice, helping organizations create stronger brands by aligning employee engagement, organizational culture and service strategy.

Before coming to Cornell, King served as Associate Dean for Indianapolis and Strategic Initiatives in Purdue University’s College of Health and Human Sciences and is a professor and former White Lodging Services Head of the White Lodging–J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. In these leadership roles, she has overseen strategic growth initiatives, curriculum innovation, faculty development and external partnerships while strengthening the school’s national and international reputation. Under her leadership, the program rose to No. 3 in the United States and No. 7 globally in the Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects for Hospitality and Tourism Management.

King also spent more than a decade at Temple University, where she served as professor, chair of the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management and director of strategic industry engagement. Earlier in her career, she held academic appointments at Griffith University in Australia and leadership positions in the hospitality industry, including senior marketing roles with Conrad Jupiters Hotel and Casino and Sheraton Mirage Gold Coast.

She developed one of the first empirically validated models of employee-based brand equity and has published extensively in leading journals across hospitality, marketing and service management. Her work has earned numerous research and teaching awards, and she has been recognized among Stanford University’s top 2% of researchers worldwide in Sport, Leisure and Tourism.

As a committed mentor, King has designed innovative undergraduate and graduate curricula, developed online degree programs, and supervised doctoral students who have gone on to academic careers around the world.

King earned a Ph.D. in Marketing, a Master of Marketing Management (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Hotel Management from Griffith University in Australia.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD Other
  • MS Other
  • BA Other