Prof. dr. Jere R. Francis

Professor Jere Francis is ranked among the top ten academics to publish in leading scientific journals in the field of accountancy research. He won two awards from the American Accounting Association (AAA) for his substantial contribution to auditing research. He was also named Outstanding Audit Educator in 2013 by the AAA. Professor Francis served on the editorial boards of several leading scientific journals, including Abacus, Accounting Organizations & Society, Accounting & Finance, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting & Economics, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review. In addition to being of scientific import, his research has been of practical significance to accountants and regulatory authorities and he has presented his research to leading international accountancy firms, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the World Bank and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the United States. As FAR Research Chair, Professor Francis conducts scientific research on the quality of audits. He will also boost auditing education in the Netherlands with the help of several PhD students as part of this chair position.

Dr. Martin C. Schmalz

Dr. Martin C. Schmalz is the PCAOB’s Chief Economist and the Director of its Office of Economic and Risk Analysis (OERA). In this role, Dr. Schmalz is responsible for advising and assisting the Board by conducting independent, data-driven economic and risk analyses to inform its oversight activities, including inspections, investigations, rulemaking, and standard setting.

Dr. Schmalz joined the PCAOB on public service leave from the University of Oxford, Saïd Business School, where he is a tenured Professor of Finance and Economics and the Academic Area Head for the Finance, Accounting, Managerial Science, and Economics faculty group. Additionally, he is a Research Affiliate with the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London and CESIfo in Munich, as well as a Research Member with the European Corporate Governance Institute in Brussels. 

Dr. Schmalz previously served as the NBD Bancorp Assistant Professor in Business Administration, Harry H. Jones Research Scholar, and as an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. He was also a Faculty Affiliate of the Center on Finance, Law and Policy at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Schmalz holds a graduate degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in mechanical engineering from the Universität Stuttgart, in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.

Prof. Christopher Humphrey

Christopher Humphrey (BCom, MA(Econ), PhD, ACA) is a Professor of Accounting in the Accounting and Finance division of the Alliance Manchester Business School.  

Christopher's main research interests are currently in the areas of international financial regulation, auditing practice and accounting education.  He is currently working on a number of research projects examining international standardisation in auditing and the functional competence of audit and the implications for accounting education, the rise of integrated reporting, and the development of consolidated ('whole of') government accounting systems. Recently he has completed joint research ventures which culminated in the publication of special sections of Critical Perspectives on Accounting (on the sustainability of the academic accounting discipline) and Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (on accounting for austerity).  Christopher is always willing to consider the supervision of doctoral students with keen interests in the above and related research areas.

Dr. Lena Pieper

Lena Pieper is Assistant Professor at Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She joined Gies after completing a PhD from Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics in the Netherlands. Lena spent time at Gies as a visiting PhD student in Spring 2022, and she brings research experience in auditing and leadership.

Dr. Christian Peters

Christian Peters is Assistant Professor in Accounting at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He received his BSc (Honors, IBA), MSc (Accountancy), MPhil (Business), and PhD (Accounting) from Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

His research interests focus on the judgment and decision making of auditing professionals, where he focuses on how operational and contextual features of the auditing environment affect auditors' judgment performance. As a secondary research interest, Christian is interested in the disclosures on and consequences of corporate tax avoidance. His research has been covered by various news outlets, including The Financial Times. 

Christian teaches Assurance and Auditing and won the Excellent Lecturer Award at Tilburg University.

Prof. dr. Olof Bik RA

Olof Bik is professor of Auditing & Assurance at the University of Groningen. In his research he takes a special interest in the study of culture, leadership, and behavior in the realm of the auditing and assurance profession, firms, and teams. Since its inception in 2015 until 2022, Bik was one of two managing directors and academic member of the Board of the Foundation for Auditing Research. He worked in the audit practice of PwC for 18 years, since 2002 always in combination with a university appointment (Groningen), and joined academia in full since 2012 (Nyenrode). 

Prof. dr. Eddy Cardinaels

Eddy Cardinaels (1975) is full Professor of accounting at Tilburg University and part-time professor at KU Leuven. His work combines new insights from psychology and behavioral economics to study how different information presentation (ABC, BSC, summaries of earnings releases) can affect decision making of managers within companies. Other experimental work focuses on drivers of honest reporting and social motives in inter-firm negotiations. He also conducts archival work on corporate governance examining how social connections between board members affect financial reporting, how companies use their networks to engage in tax avoidance and factors that drive (excess) compensation. 

Dr. Evelien Reusen

Evelien Reusen obtained her PhD at KU Leuven and is currently Associate Professor in Management Accounting at RSM. Evelien’s research concentrates on the role of control, cooperation and trust, in both intra- and interorganizational settings.

Her work has been published in Accounting, Organizations, and Society and The Journal of Supply Chain Management.

Iver Wiertz PhD student

PhD candidate at the Department of Accounting and Information Management (AIM) and the department for Education Research and Design (ERD) at the School of business and Economics, Maastricht University. 

Topics of interest include organisational learning culture, team decision-making and audit quality

WP Tjibbe Bosman RA MSc

Tjibbe Bosman is part-time PhD researcher in auditing at the Amsterdam Business School of the University of Amsterdam. Furthermore, Tjibbe is the research program manager at the Foundation for Auditing Research. He holds a MSc and BSc degree in Accountancy of Nyenrode Business University. Before moving to academia, Tjibbe worked 10 years in international audit, accounting and capital market practice at a big-4 audit firm where he completed a secondment to Munich. Tjibbe is certified public accountant in the Netherlands and Germany. Tjibbe’s PhD research is about the institutional conditions that enable and drive audit quality. Tjibbe is interested in the (potential) role of self-selection between clients and auditors, the influence of audit firm culture on audit quality and the role of empowerment and delegated responsibilities in performing high quality audits.