Speakers
Jeffrey Hales, Georgia Institute of Technology
Plenary Speaker, Friday, April 5, 8:10 am – 9:05 am
Sustainability Reporting: What is Changing and What Academics Need to Know
Jeffrey Hales is the Catherine W. and Edwin A. Wahlen, Jr., Professor of Accounting. He is a graduate of the accounting program at Brigham Young University (BYU). His Ph.D. is from Cornell University. He has taught at BYU, Cornell, the University of Texas at Austin, INSEAD, the University of Bern, the University of Washington, and has been a faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology since 2008.
His research interests center on accounting standard setting and regulation, individual decision making, and behavioral finance, using techniques from applied game theory, experimental economics, and psychology. His research has appeared in Accounting, Organizations and Society; The Accounting Review; Contemporary Accounting Research; Journal of Accounting Research; Journal of Accounting and Economics; Review of Accounting Studies; and Journal of Financial Economics, among other journals. He currently serves as an editor at Contemporary Accounting Research. He also currently serves on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review and Accounting, Organizations and Society. At Georgia Tech, he has taught financial accounting at all levels and offers Ph.D. seminars on behavioral accounting and finance, policy-oriented research in accounting, and the psychology of judgment and decision making.
He was previously a research fellow at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in Norwalk, CT and has served on the FASB’s Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council since 2016.
In addition, he has worked with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) since 2013 and currently serves as Chair of the SASB’s Standards Board. He is also a member of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board
Ann C. Dzuranin, Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Analytics in Accounting at Northern Illinois University
Plenary Speaker, Friday, April 5, 9:15 am – 10:15 am
Data and Analytics: Curriculum Innovation to Meet Employer Needs
Dr. Ann C. Dzuranin is the Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Analytics in Accounting at Northern Illinois University. She earned her B.S. from Fairleigh Dickinson University, her MBA from New York University, and her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Ann is a CPA (NJ) and has 15 years of experience in both public and corporate accounting.
Dr. Dzuranin is interested in behavioral research in managerial decision-making, incentive compensation, and accounting information systems. Specifically, she is interested management accounting decision making and the ways in which accounting information systems interact with those decisions. Her research has been published in Issues in Accounting Education, Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Business Ethics, Management Accounting Quarterly, and Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance.
Dr. Dzuranin’s work in data analytics curriculum development has resulted in invitations to present on the topic of Data Analytics and Accounting at both academic and professional conferences. Her presentations have reached over 1,500 people in the last 15 months with more than 40 universities requesting additional information regarding NIU’s approach to incorporating data analytics into the curriculum.
Sandria S. Stephenson, Kennesaw State University
Lunch Speaker, Friday, April 5, 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Defining Challenges and Solutions of Sustainability an Interdisciplinary Effort
Sandria S. Stephenson, Ph.D., CPA. Her educational background includes a Post-Doctoral-AACSB Academic Scholar from the University of Florida’s Hough Graduate School of Business; a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, Athens; a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Florida A & M University, and Bachelors in Accounting. She is also a Certified in Public Accountant (CPA) currently licensed in the states of Georgia and Florida. Dr. Stephenson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Accountancy at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA. Her scholarly activities include organizational dynamics relative to cost, and financial performance measures. In addition, she pursues scholarly activities on the behavioral effects and dynamics of accounting education. Her research and other scholarly activities are published or disseminated in various journal articles and at national, regional, and local conferences.
Marc A. Rubin, AAA President, Miami University of Ohio, Farmer School of Business
Plenary Speaker, Saturday, April 6, 8:20 am - 8:50 am
Bold Transformations Toward a Prosperous Society
Marc Rubin is the Dean and Mitchell P. Rales Chair in Business Leadership of the Farmer School of Business and Professor of Accountancy. He served as the chair of the accountancy department at FSB from 2003 to 2017. He previously was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned a B.S. in accounting from Miami University, a M.A.S. from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas and is a CPA and has experience with a national accounting firm.
Marc has won teaching awards at both Miami University and the University of North Carolina. His research interests are in the area of governmental accounting and auditing and he has published in a number of leading journals including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, and Research in Government & Nonprofit Accounting. Marc also has authored research reports for the Financial Accounting Foundation and Governmental Accounting Standards Board. Marc currently is a member of the editorial board of Issues in Accounting Education and has served on a number of other editorial boards and as a reviewer for many journals and conferences.
Marc is the president of the American Accounting Association. He previously served in many capacities including as an officer in both the Government and Nonprofit Section and the Accounting Program Leaders Group, chair of the Membership Advisory Committee and co-chair of the 2013 annual meeting. Marc has also served on various committees of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.