Faculty Activities Vairam Arunachalam (PhD, Illinois ’91) is PricewaterhouseCoopers / Joseph A. Silvoso Distinguished Professor & Director of the School of Accountancy at Mizzou. His teaching interests are in the areas of Fraud Examination and Forensic Accounting. His two co-edited books titled The Financial Landscape of Emerging Economies and Critical Perspectives on Emerging Economies were recently published by Springer Publishing. Professor Arunachalam currently serves as a Trustee of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) Research Foundation, member of the Missouri Society of CPAs (MOCPA) Education Foundation, and member of the Accountancy Board of Advisors for the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. He has been actively involved with AACSB accreditation, having chaired several AACSB accounting accreditation teams in recent years, with two more forthcoming next year. He has also been actively involved in organizing alumni and leadership visits, guest speakers, and forums such as Orin Ethics Symposium (featuring Fannie Mae CEO Tim Mayopoulos in 2021 and Theranos whistleblower Tyler Schultz forthcoming in 2022) and Dawdy Speaker Series. He is actively involved in fundraising and alumni relations for the School of Accountancy. Professor Arunachalam continues his service on the Trulaske College of Business Executive Committee and is currently serving on the Trulaske College of Business Dean Search Committee. In his free time, he can be seen walking across the Mizzou campus with his dog, DaVinci, who aspires to be an assistant to campus mascot, Truman the Tiger, someday. Leah Baer (PhD, University of Colorado Boulder ’18) is an assistant professor and the Armanino Faculty Scholar in the School of Accountancy. She teaches Accounting Information Systems to students newly admitted to the accountancy program. Her primary research interests focus on corporate governance, in particular how incentives of executives and directors influence their behavior. Leah is an active member of the American Accounting Association and has served as a reviewer for several academic journals. She maintains her CPA license in the state of Colorado.
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School of Accountancy
Elise Bartley (MAcc, University of Missouri ’08), Assistant Teaching Professor and FORVIS Teaching Scholar, currently teaches Intermediate Financial Accounting, Advanced Accounting, Fraud Examination, and Accounting Ethics at Mizzou. She advises the Mizzou Student Center for the Public Trust and the Alumni Mentor Program student organizations. Previously, Elise served as the President of the Missouri Association of Accounting Educators. She is currently a member of the American Accounting Association, the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Missouri Association of Accounting Educators, as well as is active in various community organizations including The Crossing Church. She is also a licensed CPA in the state of Missouri. Before beginning her teaching career, Elise worked for Ernst & Young as an auditor out of the Kansas City office. Mahfuz Chy (PhD, University of Toronto ’18) is an assistant professor and the Deloitte Faculty Scholar. He completed a MS in Statistics from Virginia Tech and a MS in Mathematical Finance from UNCCharlotte. Previously, he worked as a statistician in Raleigh, North Carolina. His research interests broadly span financial and auditing archival topics. Some specific areas of his current research focus on real effects of accounting/auditing, managerial short-termism, debt contracting, and unintended consequences of accounting/auditing regulations. Keith Czerney (PhD, University of Illinois ’15; MAPC, Villanova University ’06; BBA, University of Michigan ’05) is an assistant professor and the PricewaterhouseCoopers Faculty Scholar. He teaches the introductory auditing course. Keith maintains an active research agenda that principally focuses on current issues in auditing and disclosure. His research has been published in The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and AUDITING: A Journal of Practice and Theory. Beyond research and teaching, Keith serves as a review board member for The International Journal of Accounting and as an ad-hoc reviewer for several academic accounting journals and American Accounting Association (AAA)