Faculty

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.

B.S., Indiana University of Pennsylvania; MBA, University of Southern California

George Braunegg has 40 years of consulting experience in Corporate and Distribution Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, Risk Management, and Delivery Model Optimization.

After 6 years at KPMG, Professor Braunegg Co-Founded CAST Management Consultants, a highly regarded boutique consulting firm. CAST was sold in 2017 after 31 years serving the largest and most successful financial services companies.

Professor Braunegg earned a B.S. magna cum laude from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a MBA from USC. He is a CPA in California & Pennsylvania, serves on the Boards of Mercury Insurance and two not-for -profits (VOALA & SCADP) and is an advisor to Terafina a Silicon Valley Fintech firm.

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., Simon School of Business Administration

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.
Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Release Dataset: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/aaerdataset/home

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

Professor DeFond is the A. N. Mosich Chair of Accounting, Leventhal School, University of Southern California. His research investigates issues in auditing, international accounting, and earnings management. He has served as Senior Editor of The Accounting Review and on the editorial boards of several leading academic journals. 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. He is currently the Associate Dean of Faculty at the Leventhal School. He received his PhD at the University of Washington and prior to that worked as an auditor with Deloitte (formerly Touche Ross).

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.

D .Commmerce, University of South Africa; M. Commerce, Rhodes University; B.Commerce, University of the Witwatersrand

Professor Jackson teaches on the Online MBA program. His specialities are Managerial Accounting and Detecting Fraudulent Financial Reporting which he teaches on the graduate program . His textbook, Detecting Accounting Fraud: Analysis and Ethics (2015), was published by Pearson/Prentice Hall. (It is available in both hardcopy and electronic format.) His recent coauthored article, “ASU 2016-15 and GAAP Treatment of Securitization-Related Cash Flows,” was published in The CPA Journal, January 2020.
He has been interviewed on CNN, Bloomberg News, The Street.com and other television news shows, and is the winner of numerous teaching awards.

B.A., Pomona College; M.A., University of California, Irvine; J.D., Stanford Law School

MST, Golden Gate University; BS, University of California at Berkeley

Greg was a partner at Kling & Pathak LLP prior to its acquisition by a Big 4 accounting firm. During his career in public accounting, Greg provided tax planning, tax compliance, and business consulting services to clients. Greg is a full-time lecturer who specializes in individual, corporate, and real estate taxation issues. He is also the update author for the LexisNexis treatise, Federal Taxes Affecting Real Estate. Greg earned his B.S. in business administration (accounting) from University of California, Berkeley and his M.S. in taxation from Golden Gate University.

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

In Tracie's research, she employs theories from psychology and economics to delve into the effects of facets of auditors’ day-to-day environment on their judgment and decision making. Her research also incorporates individual attributes and proposes interventions to address identified problems. Tracie currently teaches introductory accounting, and also has experience teaching graduate-level auditing. She earned her doctorate at University of Texas at Austin, and has served on the faculty at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 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.

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 focuses on artificial intelligence, emerging technologies & text mining. He is former editor of IEEE Intelligent Systems & Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. Awards: Fulbright Scholar (France), Paul Gray Award “Most Thought-Provoking Paper," 2017-top 100 IS researchers, JIS best paper for 2017-2019, AIS Distinguished Member, UiPath Visionary Educator in RPA, AIS Award for Innovation in Teaching, SET Outstanding Educator Award and listed among “Top 100000 Scientists” based on citations and publications. Grants-iORB–Robotic Process Analysis, KPMG KARP Award for Data and Analytics–Non-Traditional Measures, NSA Grant-MKIDS and DHS grant on security.

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 13 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 and leads USC's master of accounting with data & analytics program. At KPMG, 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.

Professor Michael Paranal, CPA is a lawyer admitted to practice in New York and California. He is also admitted to the Roll of Solicitors in England and Wales. He worked as a capital markets attorney for Latham & Watkins in London, UK, and In 2015 was awarded the Robert Bosch Fellowship in Accounting and Securities Regulation. He joined the European Central Bank as the only non-EU citizen working in the Financial Law Division during the time of the European Debt Crisis. Professor Paranal is an alumnus of the USC MBT Program. He also earned his JD MBA at the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business, as well as a Post-Graduate Diploma in Law at the University of Oxford. He is currently part of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Tax Transaction Advisory Group.

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.

Francisco J. Román specializes on managerial accounting. His research interests lie in understanding how monetray incentives for groups influences labor productivity and job perfromance, the implications of offshoring arrangements on firms' production costs, and corporate governance in emerging capital markets. His research has been published at Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Journal of Financial Economics, and Journal of Management Accounting Research. Prior to joining academia, Professor Román worked for General Instruments and Becton Dickinson at manufacturing plants in México and the U.S. Prior to USC he held academic appoinntments at Rice University, Texas Tech and George Mason University.

Matthew Shaffer is a first-year assistant professor at the USC Marshall School of Business. He received his doctoral degree from Harvard Business School and his bachelor’s degree from Yale. His research centers on corporate governance, valuation, and the market for corporate control. His work has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics, and presented at leading conferences in accounting, finance, and law. This year, he is teaching the core undergraduate introductory accounting course, BUAD 280.

Ph.D. University of Queensland, Australia; B.A. University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Andreas Simon specializes in Accounting Information and Control Systems, Accounting Analytics and Technology, and IT Auditing. His research focuses on the production and use of information in capital markets. He has published in Contemporary Accounting Research, Accounting Horizons, and Journal of Business, Finance & Accounting. Prior to academia, Prof. Simon was a securities analyst for Landesbank and a consultant for PwC in Germany. He also served as a ranger in the German Army.

Ph.D., University of Rochester

Richard Sloan is a professor of accounting, finance and business economics at the University of Southern California. He has also served on the faculties of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. While at the University of Michigan, Professor Sloan was the founding director of the John R. and Georgene M. Tozzi Electronic Business and Finance Center. From 2006 to 2009, Sloan was a managing director in equity research at Barclays Global Investors. Professor Sloan’s research focuses on the role of accounting information in investment decisions.

B.S., University of Southern California <br>

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 served 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, 2017, B.S., Economics, Brigham Young University (summa cum laude), 2011, Minors: Business Administration, French, Arabic

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, as well as research on the intersection of accounting and emerging technologies more broadly. Lorien has presented her research at many conferences in her field and has published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, and Management Science. Her work has been cited in Bloomberg, CFO Magazine, and 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, 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. He is a CPA in California.

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

Regina Wittenberg-Moerman specializes in debt contracting and trading, banking, reporting quality, and disclosure. She has held positions at the Wharton School and the Chicago Booth. Wittenberg-Moerman is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Best Paper Prize by the Journal of Accounting and Economics and Dean’s Award for Research Excellence from Marshall.
Wittenberg-Moerman is the senior editor of the Journal of Accounting Research. She also served 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 The Accounting Review, Journal of Finance and Journal of Financial Economics.

PhD, Columbia University

Forester joined the Leventhal School of Accounting in 2016. His research uses a combination of unique settings, big data, and emerging technology to understand the role of corporate governance and information frictions in both developed and emerging economies. He studies developed economies to understand how different corporate governance mechanisms can be used to mitigate agency conflicts. His work in emerging economies is designed to understand how information frictions are created and how they can be overcome.

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 in entertainment. He has published in JAR, TAR and JMAR. His book, The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America, is a New York Times Best Seller. He has received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Management Accounting, the Notable Contributions to the Accounting Literature Award, and the Notable Contributions to the Management Accounting Literature Award (three times). He is the Official Historian of the USC Men’s Tennis Team and author of, Trojan Tennis: A History of the Storied Men’s Tennis Program at the University of Southern California. Young is also a distinguished fellow of the Center for Excellence in Teaching.