Larry DeGaris is the Executive Director of the Medill Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University, where he leads efforts to conduct applied research that improves integrated marketing communications practice.

A leading expert on sponsorship and sports marketing, his research bridges the rigor of academic scholarship with the relevance of industry practice.  Industry executives from sponsors such as General Motors, Miller Lite, Pepsi, UPS, and Allstate, have used his research to guide their multi-million-dollar sponsorship spending, adding rigor to their decision-making progress. He has used the same data sets for papers published in scholarly publications, adding relevance to the scholarly literature.