Katherine Ann Schipper

This accounting researcher, editor, teacher, standard setter and mentor was born in St. Marys, Ohio. She combines a passion for research of the highest order with an ability to bring research to bear on accounting practice.

She graduated from the University of Dayton with a B.A. in English literature, summa cum laude. In 1971 she entered the University of Chicago for graduate study, first in the Graduate Library School and later in the Graduate School of Business. She completed an M.B.A. degree in 1973, an M.A. in library science in 1975, and a Ph.D. in accounting in 1977. She joined the faculty of the Carnegie Mellon University’s Graduate School of Industrial Management in 1976 where she was promoted to Associate Professor. In 1983, she returned to the University of Chicago where she was promoted to professor in 1984. She edited the Journal of Accounting Researchfor 15 years, from 1985 to 1999. In 1999 she moved to Duke University as the L. Palmer Fox Professor of Business Administration. In 2001, she was appointed to the Financial Accounting Standards Board; following her five-year term on the Board she returned to Duke University.

She is a widely respected empirical researcher. Her rigorous and clearly focused studies show a keen insight into the economics and complexities of financial reporting as well as their policy implications. She has authored or co-authored over 35 articles in scholarly journals. Her papers on financial reporting and accounting policy have been published in the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting Horizons, and other scholarly and professional journals.

In addition to her work editing the Journal of Accounting Research, her record of editorial service includes editorial board positions with the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Accounting Horizons, the Journal of Derivatives Accounting, the Journal of Business, Finance and Accounting, and the Contemporary Journal of Accounting and Economics. In 2006, she was appointed editor of theReview of Accounting Studies.

Her contributions to academic and professional organizations include service as president of the American Accounting Association as well as election to officer positions and appointment to many of its committees. A frequent consultant to regulators and professional organizations, she served as a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board Advisory Council from 1996 to 1999.

In 2001 she was appointed to the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Her five-year tenure on the Board was distinguished by her unmatched command of the most complex accounting issues and her ability to bring research to bear on accounting policy matters. She was consistently recognized by both her fellow board members and the FASB staff as a mentor and as a force for reaching consensus on the most difficult issues.

A gifted instructor, she has supervised nearly twenty doctoral dissertations and has taught doctoral seminars at universities in China, Australia, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and throughout the United States. She has received awards for teaching from every university at which she has held faculty positions including the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon University, and Duke University. From 1991 to 1994 she served as co-director of the Accounting Education Change Commission’s curriculum development grant to the University of Chicago. She has also been an active participant in executive education programs including programs offered by the New York Stock Exchange, Columbia University, Stanford University, Duke University, the University of Chicago, and Deutsche Bank. In 1999 she was named the American Accounting Association’s Outstanding Educator in and, in the same year, the Illinois CPA Society’s Outstanding Educator.

Her many honors and awards include an honorary degree from Notre Dame University (1996); at the University of Chicago, appointment as Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor of Accounting (1993-2000) and KPMG Peat Marwick Faculty Research Scholar (1993-1999);at Duke University, appointment as Thomas Keller Professor of Business Administration. In 2005, she was named the American Accounting Association’s Presidential Lecturer.

She is the eighty-first member of the Accounting Hall of Fame, Katherine Schipper.