Ph.D. Program

Katherine Bruere is a Ph.D. student in the Leventhal School of Accounting. She is interested in empirical financial research, specifically capital markets, earnings management, and disclosure. Prior to starting the Ph.D. program, Katherine worked at Ernst & Young as an auditor in Dallas’ Financial Services division, as well as an accountant at Merit Energy. Katherine earned a BA and an MA in Accounting at Baylor University (2014) and is a licensed CPA in the state of Texas.

Tyler DeGroot is a Ph.D. student in accounting. His research interests comprise a variety of tax related topics, including the impact of individual level taxes on corporate decisions and how taxpayers interact with tax authorities. Prior to entering the Ph.D. program, he worked in public accounting where he focused on the needs of high net worth individuals, including individual tax planning and compliance, gift, estate, and trust taxation, nonprofits, and pass-through entities. Tyler is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant and earned a Master of Business Taxation degree from the University of Southern California.

Jesse Gardner is a PhD student in the Leventhal School of Accounting. He is interested in financial accounting, financial statement disclosures, and capital markets. Prior to entering the PhD program, he worked for PwC as a Tax Senior Associate in their New York City office. During his 3 years with the firm, he rotated between the Real Estate and M&A tax groups. Jesse is licensed as a CPA, and earned a MBT degree from USC in 2014 and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Virginia Tech in 2013.

Jung Koo Kang is a PhD student in Accounting. He graduated from Korea University with a Bachelor's Degree in Business and earned a Master's Degree in Statistics from University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the Marshall PhD Program, he worked as an auditor, credit rating analyst and loan officer. His research interests are in debt contracting, credit rating agency, financial institutions and bank regulation.

Stacey Ritter is a Ph.D. student in the Leventhal School of Accounting. Her research interests include behavioral topics in auditing, financial reporting, and managerial accounting. She has professional experience in the Enterprise Risk Services practice at Deloitte, the Internal Audit department at Raytheon, and the Provost Office at the University of Cincinnati. Stacey is a licensed Certified Public Accountant with a master’s degree in Accounting and a minor in Management Information Systems from The University of Texas at Austin.