Brianna Blassneck, CMP is a Graduate Assistant within the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management. Her research focus is in Youth Development, Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors, Youth Programming, Environmental Justice, Sustainable Event Management, and Ecotourism.
Nationality: American
Past Experience: Event Coordinator with the UF Performing Arts Department and Event Manager for the UF Conference Department
Past Education: B.S. and M.S. degree at UF
Favorite UF Experience: Having her Oma and Opa visit and showing them around the UF campus.
Favorite Project: Brianna enjoys working with all of her conference programs. However, the 2018 ASCE conference stands out due to the 1,200+ attendees, 26 universities, 13 competitions and 10 venues over 3 days!
Valuable Learning from EFTI and UF: Blassneck believes that EFTI and the UF community offers invaluable resources both inside and beyond the classroom.
Favorite Travel Experience: When visiting Rome, she took a day trip to Frascati. There she enjoyed a tour of the town, sampled some tavern wine and continued on to winery that has been operating for over 9 generations. The shared meal with the Minardi family over wine will be an experience she won’t forget!
Dream Place to Visit: Iceland or Norway
Hobbies: oil painting and reading
EFTI person she admires: Brianna admires her advisor, Dr. Heather Gibson, who has been a catalyst in her continued education. Specifically, she admires her commitment to students of all levels.
Fun Fact: She enjoys pushing people beyond their comfort zone, and brings some comedic relief to her workplace!
More about Brianna...
Brianna Blassneck, CMP is a Graduate Assistant within the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management and currently instructs Convention Sales and Service for the residential and UF Online sections. Completing this graduate program will make Blassneck a triple-gator as she has earned her B.S. and M.S. at UF in Recreation, Parks and Tourism. She obtained the Certified Meeting Professional designation in 2019 and Virtual Event and Meeting Management Certification in 2020 following the impacts of COVID-19 on the events industry.
Blassneck's professional experience includes event management, venue operations, sport management and recreation programming. Brianna was an Event Manager for the UF Conference Department for over four years where she served the UF faculty and community by planning, managing and executing in-person or virtual conferences, seminars, workshops and special events. Prior to this, Blassneck was an Event Coordinator with the UF Performing Arts Department where she managed operations of Baughman Center facility, the Ficke Garden grounds and supported events at the Phillips Center and the University Auditorium.
Her research focuses on narcissistic development in the context of extracurricular recreational activity. Blassneck intends to further the understanding of how this disorder presents itself in children, while contributing to the body of literature that intersects leisure and prevention sciences. The examination of youth recreational activity and the mediating effect it can have on prosocial development is an innovative approach to a growing body of research while providing tangible outcomes to practitioners and community stakeholders alike.
You can reach Brianna at bblassneck@ufl.edu or follow her on Twitter @blassneck.
