PhD Alums

Professor Amiram’s research focuses on the effects of frictions created by information asymmetry, taxation and business law on debt and equity markets around the world. He has conducted research in the areas of debt contracting, international accounting, international taxation, foreign investments, accounting regulation, accounting fraud and financial distress. His research provides evidence that accounting information, taxation and business law play a significant role in investors’ decision-making processes and shapes the design of contracts and the financial system. Professor Amiram has received awards for both research and teaching. He is frequently asked by corporations, financial institutions and the media (including Wall Street Journal and Forbes) to advise as an expert on various issues. Professor Amiram has vast experience in the corporate world. He served and currently serves on the board of directors of various corporations. He worked as part of the controller’s team for a multinational corporation, and for PwC as a senior auditor.

danamiram@tauex.tau.ac.il

armsd@umich.edu

Andrew Belnap is an Assistant Professor of Accounting in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines tax disclosure and tax enforcement issues, often in collaboration with key regulators, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. His studies have been published in top accounting journals including the Journal of Accounting and Economics and the Review of Accounting Studies.

Andrew teaches Introduction to Taxation at McCombs. He received a BS in Accounting from Brigham Young University, a Master of Accountancy degree from Brigham Young University, and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

andrew.belnap@mccombs.utexas.edu

Professor Jennifer Blouin’s research centers on the role of taxation in firm decision-making.

She studies taxation in many contexts, including capital structure, asset pricing, payout policy and multinational firm behavior. Professor Blouin’s research has been published in top-tier academic journals including Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, National Tax Journal and the Journal of the American Taxation Association. She has received funding from the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research, the Global Initiatives Research Program and the International Tax Policy Forum. In addition, Professor Blouin is a 2009-2010 Golub Faculty Scholar.

Professor Blouin teaches taxation to undergraduate, MBA and PhD students. She received her PhD in Accounting from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill and her BS from Indiana University – Bloomington.

blouin@wharton.upenn.edu

University of Pennsylvania

zdai@utdallas.edu

Scott Dyreng is a Professor of Accounting at Duke University. His research interests are in corporate tax avoidance, international taxation, and accounting for income taxes. He has published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Financial Economics, among others. He teaches managerial accounting to graduate students, and has received the Excellence in Teaching Award in the Duke MMS program three times. He received his PhD at the University of North Carolina in 2008. He holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in accounting from Brigham Young University.

scott.dyreng@duke.edu

Duke University

Evansal@uncw.edu

The academic interests of Dean Mary Margaret Frank include the integration of business principles and public policy objectives, cross-sector collaboration and leadership, and sustainable investing. These interests stem from her research on the effects of regulation – specifically tax, financial accounting, and patent reporting – on the strategy of corporate management, investors and entrepreneurs.

An award-winning teacher and researcher and academic leader, Dr. Frank was named dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler effective Aug. 15, 2023. She is a Triple Tar Heel, an academic fellow at the UNC Tax Center and has taught in the Master of Accounting Program.

Dr. Frank returns to UNC Kenan-Flagler from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where she was senior associate dean for faculty development, John Tyler Professor of Business Administration. She also was co-founder and academic director of the Institute for Business in Society. In that role she led the development of the P3 Impact Award, which recognizes leading cross-sector collaboration to improve communities around the world, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and Concordia. Her passion for cross-sector collaboration also led her to establish the Tri-Sector Leadership Fellows program, which brings together graduate students from business, law and public policy.

She also served on the faculty of University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she received its Phoenix Award in recognition of the faculty who, in addition to classroom responsibilities, has greatly enriched the learning experience of campus students.

Dr. Frank served as a board director and chairperson of the audit committee of a small publicly traded company, The Female Health Company, for 14 years, which merged with a biotech company in 2016 to become Veru Inc. The medical device company’s mission was to empower women, most of whom were from developing economies, to protect themselves against HIV and AIDS.

She practiced as a CPA and senior tax consultant for Arthur Andersen in Washington, D.C, before she returned to UNC Kenan-Flagler to enroll in the PhD Program in accounting. She received her PhD, Master of Accounting and BSBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler.

dean@kenan-flagler.unc.edu

UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Greg Geisler is an Associate Professor of Accounting at UMSL. He teaches courses on Income Taxes, Advanced Income Taxes, and Taxes and Investments. His research interests include how taxes affect investment decisions of individuals. He has been published in Journal of Accountancy, Journal of Financial Planning, Journal of Financial Service Professionals, State Tax Notes, Tax Notes, and many other journals. He serves the Accounting Department as Chair of the Accounting Scholarships Committee and Coordinator of Accounting Internships for Academic Credit. He serves the University on the Budget & Planning Committee.

He volunteers as the Treasurer for West County/CYC Basketball and teaching Volunteer Income Tax Assistance students. He earned his Bachelor’s in Accounting from University of Notre Dame, worked for various CPA firms in Pittsburgh, earned an MBA from University of Pittsburgh and a PhD from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. He is originally from Pittsburgh, PA, and has six brothers and sisters and 17 nieces and nephews who still live there. He still roots for the Pirates and Steelers.

geisler@umsl.edu

Margot Howard studies how tax policy relates to investment, financing, and reporting decisions. Her research has been published in the Journal of the American Taxation Association and the Journal of Portfolio Management.

Professor Howard has taught courses in financial accounting, individual income tax, and tax and business strategy. She currently teaches in the undergraduate and MAC programs.

Professor Howard won the Best Case Award in the Carl Menconi Ethics Case Writing Competition.

She earned her B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, her MAcc from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Margot_Howard@kenan-flagler.unc.edu

Professor Kemsley is a chaired accounting and tax professor who teaches MBAs, Master of Accounting students, Master of Management students, and Master of Finance students. For eight years, he worked as an accounting and tax professor at Columbia Business School, and for a one-year visit, he taught at Yale School of Management. At Columbia, he was the director of tax education. Furthermore, for fifteen years, Professor Kemsley provided accounting and financial statement analysis training to financial analysts at several banks in New York, including Morgan Stanley, Citibank, Lehman Brothers, and others. Currently, his teaching covers a broad range of topics, including financial accounting, financial statement analysis, professional research in accounting, and taxation.

Professor Kemsley began his accounting career more than thirty years ago as a CPA in New Mexico. Later, he briefly worked as a registered security representative and as an accountant for a coal mine. He then served as a manager for Coopers & Lybrand in San Francisco. Academically, he has published widely in top accounting, tax, finance, and economics journals, with an emphasis on the policy and valuation effects of accounting information and taxes. Specific topics include the taxation of foreign direct acquisitions, exports, dividends, valuation of the debt tax shield, and more. His research has been debated by Congress.

As an expert witness, Professor Kemsley has worked with many corporations and with the Internal Revenue Service. He has dealt with issues regarding consolidated accounting, accounting for leases, retirement plans, cross-country income allocation, disregarded tax entities, tax malpractice, and tax shelters. He also worked on a large case involving the impairment of titanium mining assets in which he focused on the indicators of impairment, the test for recoverability, and the measurement of an impairment loss. This case spanned guidance in FAS 115, FAS 121, and FAS 144, which is related to ASC 360-10 and ASC 820. Professor Kemsley has testified as a qualified accounting expert in federal court, provided deposition testimonies, written expert reports, and rebutted reports.

dkemsley@tulane.edu

Brad.Lindsey@usu.edu

marklek2@msu.edu

msmullan@iu.edu

Daniel P. Murphy is a professor of accounting and specializes in federal taxation. He served as Department Head from 2003 to 2012. He joined the faculty in 1990 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Murphy is a Certified Public Accountant and previously worked with two international accounting firms. His research focuses on the effect of taxes on investment behavior, global tax planning and public policy. His research has been published in The Journal of the American Taxation Association, The Journal of Taxation, Advances in Taxation and numerous other journals. He has been awarded a PriceWaterhouse Coopers Research Fellowship, a grant from the KPMG Peat Marwick Foundation and was named co-recipient of the Outstanding Author Award by the Journal of Financial Services Professionals.

Dr. Murphy’s teaches international taxation, principles of taxation, and financial statement analysis in the MBA program. Dr. Murphy has won numerous awards for teaching excellence including the Pugh & Company Accounting Faculty Excellence Award, The Beta Alpha Psi Excellence Award, and the John Moore Award.

Dr. Murphy is very involved in professional and community service. He served as Vice-President and member of the Board of Directors for the American Taxation Association and served as President and Board Chair of the American Accounting Association’s Accounting Programs Leadership Group. Dr. Murphy has served two, four-year terms, including two years as Board Chair, on the Knox County Board of Education, was a co-founder and Board Chair of the Great Schools Partnership, and currently serves as Board Chair of the Knoxville Community Development Corporation.

dmurphy@utk.edu

omartian@umich.edu

Leslie Robinson teaches financial accounting in the MBA and Business Bridge programs. She is among Poets and Quants’ 40 best business school professors under the age of 40. Her research interests include the interaction of tax and accounting policy, and her expertise centers on the tax and accounting issues associated with multinational operations.

leslie.a.robinson@tuck.dartmouth.edu

Dartmouth College

Professor Thornock is an associate professor of accounting in the Marriott School of Management at BYU and holds the Distinguished EY Fellowship. He recently joined BYU from the University of Washington, where he was a tenured associate professor of accounting and the PwC Faculty Fellow. At UW, he won numerous awards, including the Smith Award for excellence in research, and the Crockett Award and Fowler Award for educational innovation at UW. He also received a research prize from the Chicago Quantitative Alliance.

Jake has diverse research interests, including interest in taxation, tax havens, earnings information content and information technologies. His research has been accepted for publication at the Journal of Accounting & Economics, Journal of Accounting Research,The Accounting Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics,Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Management Science and Financial Management. Jake’s research has been cited or featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, Bloomberg, Fox News, and NPR, and has been presented at the IRS, the SEC and a congressional subcommittee.

Professor Thornock completed his doctoral studies at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina,where he was awarded the William Delozier Fellowship for Outstanding Doctoral Student. He earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in accounting at BYU. In practice, he worked as a financial advisor for a regional brokerage firm and as a tax accountant. He has also consulted for a large financial company and a small tech startup.

thornock@byu.edu

Brigham Young University

kwentlan@gmu.edu

Professor Robert Yetman is an expert on corporate tax, financial accounting, income tax, U.S. and international financial accounting, and nonprofit accounting and tax issues. His research concentrates on the effect of taxes on business decisions and the response of non-profit organizations to economic incentives. Yetman recently examined why some tax-exempt charities choose to be taxed on their unrelated business income, and how such behavior is not always driven by the desire to maximize profits. He has lectured on cost accounting at executive education programs for wine industry professionals.

Yetman received his Ph.D. in accounting from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his M.S. in accountancy from San Diego State University. He holds a B.S. in engineering from Marietta College.

rjyetman@ucdavis.edu

Professor Michelle Yetman’s research interests are in financial reporting quality, governance and taxation. She expands beyond the boundaries of the commonly investigated U.S. for-profit corporation by investigating international and nonprofit settings. Her research has been published in the Journal of Accounting Research, the Accounting Review, National Tax Journal, Management Science, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy. She teaches the core MBA course in financial accounting, as well as an accounting for nonfinancial managers course in the Wine Executive Program.

Yetman received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her Master of Accounting Science from the University of Illinois, Champaign, and her MBA from Texas A&M University. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from Stephen F. Austin State University. She is a certified public accountant in Texas and a member of the American Accounting Association.

mhyetman@ucdavis.edu