Dr. Cindi Gilliland received her Ph.D. in social psychology at Michigan State University in 1992. She taught approximately 20,000 undergraduate, graduate, and executive students at five universities in her thirty five-year teaching career. She is a university award-winning Professor of Practice Emerita in the Management and Organizations Department of The Eller College of Management at The University of Arizona. There Cindi served as a University of Arizona Faculty Fellow, Co-Chair of the UA President’s LGBTQ Advisory Council, UA Campus Community Relations Committee member, Eller College Diversity Committee member, Business Advisory Board member for MBA Net Impact and Enactus, Board of Directors member for Child and Family Resources and the Tucson Women’s Business Center, and Faculty Advisor for Wildcats CARE.

She also spent five years as a Clinical Full Professor of Organizational Psychology in the Division of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) At CGU, she served as Director of the Masters in Human Resource Management Program and on the Committee for Faculty Inclusive Excellence, as an Associate in the Worker Wellbeing Lab, as co-Advisor for CGU Professionals In Human Resource Association, and as Principal Investigator for the Positive Human Resource Management Lab. 

Cindi also served as President of Gilliland Consulting, a management consulting firm with local and international clients of all sizes and across all sectors. Previous clients include Microsoft, BHP Billiton, Arizona Department of Public Safety, Girl Scouts of America, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, and the Cities of Tucson and Ontario. The firm specializes in managerial leadership development and strategic planning.

Cindi's professional interests include resilience and well-being, love and positive relationships, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is currently writing a book on love.  She has been married for 33 years to Dr. Stephen Gilliland, University Professor of CGU, and they have two adult children, Austin, 32, Senior Director of European Acquisitions at Breakthrough Properties in London, UK; and Caitlin, 29, a Ph.D. student in clinical neuropsychology in the joint doctoral program of UCSD/SDSU in San Diego, CA.