Faculty

PhD, MS, UC-Berkeley; BS, University of Redlands

Eric Allen's research focuses on the effect of statutory requirements on firm income tax disclosures, financial statement analysis, and motion picture accounting. Professor Allen is a licensed CPA, a referee for the Review of Accounting Studies, and a member of the American Accounting Association.

JD, Stanford University; BS, DePaul University

Jack Barcal is an expert in taxation, estate planning, probate, trusts, estates and wills, and tax law. He has published in The Journal of Taxation and Estate Planning among other journals. Professor Barcal is a past recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award at the Leventhal School of Accounting. He has served as chairman of Death & Gift Tax Section and the Inheritance Tax Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and has consulted for a variety of entities, families and individuals, including acting as special tax, estate & trust counsel for a trustee of a multi-billion dollar trust/estate.

PhD, MAS, BS, University of Illinois

Professor Beatty's scholarship spans accounting, finance, and management, with articles published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Accounting Research, Accounting Horizons, Journal of Law & Economics, Journal of Financial Economics, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Strategic Management Journal. He has won or been nominated for teaching awards at USC Marshall School of Business, Southern Methodist University, the University of Chicago, the Wharton School, and the University of Illinois. In 1994, Business Week selected him as one of twelve Masters of the Classroom. Beatty has consulted for a variety of organizations providing expert witness testimony on bankruptcy prediction, valuation, and financial accounting issues. Beatty serves on the Advisory Board for the USC Caruso Catholic Center and the City of Hope Board. He is also the Chair of the City of Hope Medical Center Board.

PhD, University of Michigan; MA, George Washington University; BS, Wake Forest University

Sarah Bonner is a leader in the study of judgment and decision making. Her book, Judgment and Decision Making in Accounting (2008) develops a framework that synthesizes research in psychology and economics. She has published in the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, and Accounting, Organizations and Society. She serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Accounting Research, and previously served on the board of The Accounting Review. Professor Bonner has received two National Science Foundation grants, the American Accounting Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award, the USC-Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring, and the Evan C. Thompson Faculty Mentoring and Leadership Award.

JD, BS, Loyola Marymount University; MBA, University of Southern California

Ruben Davila is an expert on financial accounting and reporting, management control issues, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. He is a forensic accountant who has served as a consultant and expert witness in a variety of complex business litigation matters including: fraudulent financial reporting, embezzlement, economic damages, solvency, business valuation, and corporate governance. Professor Davila served on the California Board of Accountancy from 2003 to 2007. He has been highly involved with professional activites including the AICPA Board of Examiners, NASBA's Global Strategies Committee, NASBA's International Qualifications Board including Task Force Leader for the MRA review of the Chinese Institute of CPAs.

Ph.D. Accounting and Finance 1993, W. E. Simon School of Business Administration, University of Rochester (supervised by Professor Ross Watts);
M.S. Business Administration 1990, W. E. Simon School of Business Administration, University of Rochester;
Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honors) 1986, University of Western Australia (supervised by Professor Philip Brown).

Professor Dechow's research focuses on accounting accruals, the quality and reliability of earnings, the use of earnings information in predicting stock returns, and the effect of analysts' forecasts on investors’ perceptions of firm value.

PhD, University of Washington; BA, San Francisco State University

Professor DeFond is the A. N. Mosich Chair of Accounting, Leventhal School of Accounting, University of Southern California. His research investigates issues in auditing, international financial reporting, and earnings management. He is a former Senior Editor of The Accounting Review and has served on the editorial boards of several leading academic journals, including the Journal of Accounting Research and the Journal of Accounting and Economics. He is a recipient of the AAA’s Notable Contribution to the Auditing Literature Award, and a four-time MBA Golden Apple teaching award winner. Professor DeFond has held visiting professorships in Hong Kong and Singapore, and is currently the Associate Dean of Faculty at the Leventhal School of Accounting. He received his PhD at the University of Washington and prior to that worked for several years as an auditor with Deloitte (formerly Touche Ross) and is a California CPA (inactive).

MBA, University of Southern California; BSA, University of Florida

Chrislynn Freed's interests include financial accounting and auditing. Professor Freed received the CalCPA Outstanding Accounting Educator Award in 2013, Golden Apple Award in 2010, 2012 and 2014, USC Mellon Award for mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in 2009 and 2008, and USC Parents Association Teaching and Mentoring Award in 2008. Professor Freed's activities include serving as Trustee on CalCPA Education Foundation, serving on three committees for CalCPA , member of USC's Committee on Academic Policies and Procedures and the Advisory board of Florida's Fisher School of Accounting. Prior to joining USC she was a senior manager in an international CPA firm.

Ph.D., University of Arizona; M.Acc., University of Arizona; B.S., Business Economics, Eastern Oregon University

Shane Heitzman specializes in the economic consequences of corporate and individual taxation, mergers and acquisitions, and information quality in capital markets. His research is published in top accounting and finance journals and he serves an associate editor for the Journal of Accounting and Economics and The Accounting Review. Prior to joining USC, Professor Heitzman was on the faculty at the University of Rochester.

DBA, MAcc, University of Oklahoma; BS, Oklahoma State University

William Holder is an expert on financial accounting and reporting, and auditing. His research has been published in The Journal of Accountancy, The Accounting Review, the Financial Executive, and The CPA Journal. He is a recipient of the Gold Medal Distinguished Achievement in Accounting Education Award. Professor Holder served as a member of the American Institute of CPAs and chaired its audit committee.

PhD, Michigan State University; MS, BA, Western Michigan University

Merle Hopkins conducts research on support for the hypothesized importance of expected cash flows to firms, and has published in The Corporation Law Review. Professor Hopkins served as Assistant Dean in the Leventhal School of Accounting, and is actively and extensively involved with several on-going programs conducted by the USC Office of Executive Development. Former clients include Amgen, Security Pacific Bank, Union Bank among others. He has consulted for a variety of organizations, including the Security Pacific National Bank and Union Bank in Los Angeles.

DCom, University of South Africa; MCom, Rhodes University; BCom, University of the Witwatersrand

Professor Jackson is an expert on accounting models. He is the author of Business Fairy Tales: Grim Realities of Fictitious Financial Reporting (2006), and has published articles in The Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Accountancy SA. Professor Jackson received the Senior Graduating Class Most Memorable Professor Award and the Orange County MBA Core Class #1 "Favorite Professor" of the Year Award and "Favorite Course" Award.

MBA, BS, CSU Northridge

Bob Kiddoo is an expert in the selection, implementation and support of enterprise systems. He has 20 years of experience implementing ERP based systems in a variety of industries, and teaches advanced courses in the Accounting Information Systems program covering systems strategy, project planning, project management, systems analysis and design, and systems implementation. He also serves as Executive Director of University Advancement Gift Accounting, where he leads the team that implemented and maintains the University's PeopleSoft based Constituent Relationship System (CRS).

MAcc, BS, DePaul University

Rose Layton is an expert in auditing and assurance and financial accounting, particularly in the areas of auditor liability and financial statement fraud. She is a Searle Fellow and a recipient of the Margaret Keldie Award from the American Society of Woman Accountants.

Ph. D University of Oxford, 1998, Economics.
M. Phil. University of Oxford, 1995, Economics.
B. Sc. University of Warwick, 1991, Economics.

Clive joined the Leventhal School of Accounting in 2015. His research interests are in auditing, disclosure, fraud, bankruptcy, and empirical methods. He has published more than twenty articles in the top-tier accounting journals (Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and the Review of Accounting Studies). His research and teaching has received numerous prizes including the Notable Contribution to the Auditing Literature Award from the American Accounting Association in 2016. Clive is an editor at The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research, and he is a member of the editorial board at the Journal of Accounting Research.

PhD, University of Texas Austin; MS, BA, Wake Forest University

Tracie’s research focuses on auditing and financial reporting issues, and she draws upon theory from psychology and economics to conduct experiments examining these issues. Her particular areas of interest are factors influencing auditor judgment effectiveness, impacts of regulation, and effects of individual attributes on decision-making. She earned her doctorate at University of Texas at Austin, and served on the faculty at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign prior to joining USC’s faculty. Prior to her doctorate, she worked in auditing and transaction services at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

University of California, Davis

Shirley Maxey serves as Assistant Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, Marshall School of Business, and she is Associate Dean for the Master of Accounting and Business Taxation programs in the Leventhal School of Accounting. She specializes in accounting communication and professional development and served seven years as Chair of the Dept. of Business Communication. Before joining USC, Professor Maxey worked for the California Legislature's Auditor General and with Coopers & Lybrand. Professor Maxey is the recipient of the Instructor Excellence Award, the Faculty Excellence Award, Marshall's Master Teacher Award, the Dean's Award for Community, and the Marshall Award for Innovation in Teaching. She is a member of the American Accounting Association's Accounting Program Leaders Group and is active in the Federation of Schools of Accountancy. She represents Marshall and Leventhal as Academic Coordinator for the AACSB Bridge Program for Instructional Practitioners.

PhD, UC-Berkeley; MBA, Columbia University; BA, Union College

Kenneth Merchant is an expert in management accounting, management control systems, and corporate governance. He has published in many journals, including Accounting, Organizations and Society, The Accounting Review, Industrial Relations, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Marketing, and Management Science. He has received numerous awards, including five Notable Contributions to Research awards from the American Accounting Association, two for lifetime contributions to the field. He also received an honorary doctorate from the Turku School of Economics (Finland) in 2010. Professor Merchant served as Dean of the Leventhal School of Accounting from 1994 to 2001. Before joining USC, he taught at Harvard Business School and UC-Berkeley.

LLM, University of San Diego; JD, BS, Syracuse University

Patricia Mills specializes in partnership, real estate, and individual tax issues, she has contributed to the treatises Powell on Real Property and California Real Estate Law and Practice, and has published articles in the California Real Estate Journal, The Journal of Real Estate Taxation, and the Tax Lawyer. Prior to joining USC Marshall, she spent 20 years in private practice. She has served on the Research Institute of America's Customer Support Advisory Board. Professor Mills is a frequent speaker on tax topics, including at NYU's Federal Tax Institute and USC's Institute on Federal Taxation.

PhD, Case Western Reserve University; MBA, University of Michigan; BS, Bowling Green University

Dan O'Leary has published articles in Management Science, Decision Sciences, IEEE Intelligent Systems, IEEE Computer, International Journal of Human and Computer Studies, Communications of the ACM, and Decision Support Systems. He served as editor of IEEE Intelligent Systems and the International Journal of Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, and on the editorial board of Enterprise Information Systems, Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Information Technology and Management, and Journal of Information Systems. Prior to completing his PhD, he worked in consulting for Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co.

PhD, University of Southern California; MS, BS, Moscow State University

Maria Ogneva is an Associate Professor at the Leventhal School of Accounting, Marshall School of Business. Before joining University of Southern California, she served as an Assistant Professor of Accounting at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Maria received her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Economics from Moscow State University and a PhD in Accounting from University of Southern California.

Maria’s research focuses on accounting-based risk assessment, accounting information and market efficiency, accounting-based equity valuation, and, more recently, on the link between accounting information and macroeconomy. Her work has been published in the top accounting and finance journals, including Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Finance, and Journal of Accounting Research. She currently serves as an Associate Editor at Management Science and Journal of Accounting Research. She is a member of editorial boards at The Accounting Review and Journal of Financial Reporting.

BS, USC

John has taught at USC for 10 years and was an Audit partner with KPMG for 27 years (38 in total with the Firm). He teaches business and financial analysis and management classes. He provided audit and supply chain strategy services to clients in consumer and industrial products, energy, medtech and others. He led audits of a Fortune 300 metals company, a $25 billion consumer products company (under IFRS), and the fourth largest oil and gas company in the United States. John headed the Firm’s campus recruiting in the Western United States. He graduated from USC majoring in accounting.

Ph.D., Stanford; B.S., University of Michigan

Smrity Randhawa is an Accounting scholar whose area of expertise spans financial accounting, managerial accounting, valuation, disclosure and corporate governance. Smrity holds a PhD in Business from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. In her research, she has studied the effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on small public companies. At Marshall School of Business she has taught classes ranging from Introductory Accounting for undergraduate students to Financial Statement Analysis for graduate students. In addition to her faculty duties, she also provides consulting services related to: bankruptcy analysis; fair value accounting measurements and valuations; and provides opinions on the analysis of other experts.

MBA, DePaul University; BS, University of Illinois - Chicago

Thomas Ryan is an expert on valuation for financial statement and federal tax purposes. He retired from the PricewaterhouseCoopers partnership in 2010. As PwC's national tax valuation leader from 2002 to 2006, he guided growth of the practice to ten cities. He also served as managing director at KPMG and was a partner at Arthur Young. He has over 35 years of experience valuing the business enterprise, intangible assets, real property, and manufacturing assets. He teaches valuation topics for CFALA and is the Leventhal School's representative to International Valuation Standards Council.

MBA, UC-Berkeley; BA, CSU-Hayward

Kendall Simmonds is a two-time receipient of the prestigious Marshall School of Business Golden Apple Excellence in Teaching Award. He has served as Director of the Marshall Undergraduate Honors Program and is currently the Director of the Leventhal School Summer Leadership Program (SLP). He is a member of the National Association of Financial Planners, National Association of Accountants, National Association of Black Accountants, and American Accounting Association.

PhD, Business Administration (Accounting and Finance), W.E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester;
MS, Business Administration (Accounting and Finance), W.E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester;
Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honors), University of Western Australia

Richard Sloan is Accounting Circle Professor of Accounting at the University of Southern California. From 2006 to 2009, Sloan was a managing director in equity research at Barclays Global Investors. He has also held academic positions at the University of California at Berkeley (Haas School), the University of Michigan (Ross School) and the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School). While at the University of Michigan, Professor Sloan was the founding director of the Tozzi Electronic Business and Finance Center.

B.S., University of Southern California

Prior to joining the faculty of the Leventhal School in 2011, she spent two decades with Deloitte, and served as the Director of Accounting for Bergen Brunswig Corporation. Additionally, Lori has served as the Executive Director of the Forum for Corporate Directors and was actively involved for 10 years on the Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society. Lori serves with distinction as the Director of the SEC and Financial Reporting Institute at Leventhal. Another important role that Lori plays in the Leventhal School is that of Assistant Dean of Academic Administration.

PhD, University of Michigan; MS, Seattle University; BS, California State Polytechnic University

Mark Soliman specializes in financial reporting information, trading strategies, capital markets, debt ratings voluntarily disclosure, especially non-GAAP earnings. He has held positions at The Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Foster School at the University of Washington where he was the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Outside of academia, he was vice president of accounting-based research at Citadel Investment Group in Chicago and consulted extensively for Renaissance Technologies, helping them to develop trading strategies for their hedge fund. Professor Soliman has published extensively in the top journals including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, The Review of Accounting Studies, Management Science and Contemporary Accounting Research. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Notable Contribution to the Accounting Literature in 2009 along with the Best Paper award at several conferences. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review and The Review of Accounting Studies. Professor Soliman is also a CPA in the state of California and Washington (inactive). He is also a triathlete recently completing the Ironman distance in Coeur D’Alene in Idaho.

Ph.D., Accounting, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler Business School, 2017
B.S., Economics, Brigham Young University (summa cum laude), 2011
Minors: Business Administration, French, Arabic BYU Accounting Ph.D. prep track

Lorien received a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of North Carolina and a B.S. in Economics from Brigham Young University. She conducts research which examines written communication of financial information through corporate filings and disclosures using linguistics-based research methodologies, often with a particular focus on the effects of regulation. Lorien has presented her research at many conferences in her field and has published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics. Her work has been cited in CFO Magazine as well as the Wall Street Journal.

PhD, University of Wisconsin; MBA, Indian Institute of Management - Ahmadabad; BCom, Madras University

K.R. Subramanyam is a prolific and highly cited researcher in financial accounting and auditing who is on the editorial boards of several leading journals. His research has been widely reported in the national and international media and also cited in congressional hearings. He is the recipient of several research awards including the Notable Contribution to the Auditing Literature. Professor Subramanyam teaches financial statement analysis in the MBA program and is an author of a popular text book on the topic. Professor Subramanyam has been actively involved with doctoral students and has placed his students at Stanford and Columbia.

PhD, Stanford; B.S. Wellesley College

Julie Suh earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. in Business Administration (Accounting) from Stanford University. Her research interests include voluntary disclosure, CEO compensation, earnings management, and corporate governance.  She previously taught financial accounting to undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley and most recently, at Loyola Marymount University. While at Berkeley, she was honored with the Outstanding New Instructor Award as well as the student-nominated Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.  Prior to academia, Suh spent time in the corporate sector as an economic consultant for Cornerstone Research in San Francisco and as an investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs in New York City. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Marcus, and their two dogs, and enjoys surfing, obstacle course racing, and flying on the trapeze in her free time.

PhD, University of Southern California; MS, Arizona State University; BS, University of Arizona

Charles Swenson conducts economics-based research on state and local taxation, location-based credits and incentives, and enterprise zones. He has published articles in the Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Public Economics, National Tax Journal, and The Accounting Review. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy and the Asia Pacific Journal of Taxation, and previously served on the editorial board of The Accounting Review. Professor Swenson is a three-time recipient of the Tax Manuscript Award from the American Taxation Association, and received the Most Popular Teacher Award at the Leventhal School of Accounting.

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania; BBA, University of Wisconsin- Madison

David Tsui’s research interests revolve around corporate governance, with a particular focus on the design of executive compensation contracts and how these and other incentive mechanisms affect managers’ investment and reporting choices. Much of his research also emphasizes the role of uncertainty in decision-making and incentive design. Professor Tsui received his PhD in Accounting from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and previously worked as an equity analyst covering the automotive industry at Robert W. Baird.

Ph.D., University of Michigan, Business Administration, 1988
M.B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, Accounting, 1980
B.S., National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan, Engineering, 1978

Professor Wang is involved in several international programs at the Marshall School of Business including Global Leadership Program, Pacific Rim Education Program (PRIME), and EMBA training program for major Chinese Universities. A native of Taiwan, his research and teaching interest includes financial accounting, tax and valuation issues in mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, and taxes and business strategy. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, and the Journal of the American Taxation Association.

MBA, BS, University of Southern California

Zivia Sweeney is an expert in strategic planning and budgeting, mergers and acquisitions, and accounting and finance operations for manufacturing, healthcare, service, and nonprofit organizations. She has served in senior management roles in public corporate and nonprofit arenas, and has held the of Chief Financial Officer, Vice President of Finance, and Corporate Controller. Professor Sweeney is a PriceWaterhouseCoopers alumnus. She has served for a number of years as a member of the USC Leventhal School’s Accounting Advisory Board.

Ph.D., The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, 2006.
MBA, The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, 2006.
MBA, Finance and Accounting, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Summa Cum Laude, 1999.
B.A., Accounting and Economics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Magna Cum Laude, 1996.

Regina Wittenberg-Moerman specializes in financial reporting quality, debt contracting and trading, information asymmetry, financial intermediation, and bond analysts. She has held positions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Wittenberg-Moerman's published research includes "The Role of Information Asymmetry and Financial Reporting Quality in Debt Trading: Evidence from the Secondary Loan Market" in the Journal of Accounting and Economics, “Price Discovery and Dissemination of Private Information by Loan Syndicate Participants” in the Journal of Accounting Research and “A Debt Analysts’ View of Debt-Equity Conflicts of Interest” in The Accounting Review.

Wittenberg-Moerman is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Best Paper Prize by the Journal of Accounting and Economics in 2008 and Ernest R. Wish Accounting Research Award in 2011. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Accounting and Economics and the Journal of Accounting research and is a referee for numerous journals, including Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Review of Accounting Studies, Review of Financial Studies and The Accounting Review.

At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Wittenberg-Moerman earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in accounting and economics in 1996 and an MBA summa cum laude in finance and accounting in 1999. In 2006, Wittenberg-Moerman received an MBA and PhD from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

PhD, Columbia University

Forester joined the Leventhal School of Accounting in 2016. His research interests are in corporate governance, activists investing, and executive compensation. Forester is the recipient of the 2014 Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship in Accounting and the 2015 Alex Woo MBA 1984 Doctoral Fellowship. He will receive his doctorate from Columbia Business School in May 2016. Outside of academia, Forester maintains active professional memberships in the Legal Service Board of Victoria (Australia) and CPA Australia.

PhD, MBA, UCLA;

T.J. Wong is an expert on accounting and corporate governance in emerging markets. He has published numerous articles in top accounting and finance journals. He is currently the associate editor of Management Science and has served as an editor for The Accounting Review and in the editorial board of several accounting journals. His research is frequently featured in media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Globe and Mail and South China Morning Post. Prior to joining USC, he served as the Dean of the CUHK Business School from 2008 to 2013.

DBA, Harvard University

Shelley Xin Li received her Doctoral degree in Business Administration (Accounting and Management) from the Harvard Business School in May 2016. She joined the Leventhal School of Accounting as an assistant professor of accounting in June 2016. Shelley examines the role of management control and corporate governance mechanisms in driving innovation and long-term performance. She analyzes archival data and employs field experiments in her research. Her dissertation examines the problem of motivating innovation in a multi-tasking environment and finds that under certain conditions reduced time pressure on execution tasks is associated with more employee-initiated innovation. Shelley's research has already been published in the Accounting Review. She has won the AAA/Grant Thornton Doctoral Dissertation Award.

PhD, University of Pittsburgh; MAcc, The Ohio State University; BA, Oberlin College

S. Mark Young studies management control system design and has conducted research in the automobile, airline, high tech, and entertainment industries. He has published in Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, and Academy of Management Review, and served as associate editor of The Accounting Review. His book with Dr. Drew Pinsky, The Mirror Effect, was a New York Times Best Seller. Professor Young received the Notable Contributions to the Accounting Literature Award and the Notable Contributions to the Management Accounting Literature Award. He is a distinguished fellow of the Center for Excellence in Teaching at USC.