About

BIO:

Nerissa Brown is Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Professor of Accountancy in the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. She holds the PwC and Lakonishok Faculty Fellowships, and most recently served as the Academic Director for the BSA and MAS programs in Gies. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner and a former academic fellow of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

As Associate Dean, Nerissa leads the strategic initiatives and academic affairs of Gies’ online and residential graduate programs, which span general and specialized degree and certificate programs in management, accountancy, finance, and analytics. Her unit serves over 5,000 learners in one of the nation’s largest online MBA programs, along with over 3,000 learners across the College’s other graduate offerings.

Nerissa is a well-cited researcher on financial reporting issues and frequently serves as an expert on accounting matters for leading media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Bloomberg TV, and CNBC. Her research focuses on corporate financial reporting practices, the disclosure and regulation of non-GAAP metrics, and the role of behavioral biases in capital markets. Her work is published in leading journals such as the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Management Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business, Finance & Accounting, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, and Accounting Horizons. She has co-authored comment letters on accounting matters to the FASB and IASB, and served as a panelist on the 2019 FASB public roundtable on goodwill accounting.

Nerissa holds a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Maryland and earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in accounting with distinction from the University of the West Indies (Jamaica). She is an incoming editor at The Accounting Review and an editor at the Journal of Business, Finance & Accounting. She is also a guest editor for a Journal of Financial Reporting special issue on standard setting issues and serves on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review, Journal of Financial Reporting, and Accounting Horizons. She has received multiple awards for excellence in research, teaching, and service to the accounting profession and to business education. Most recently, she is the recipient of the 2021 Gies College Dean’s Impact Award and the 2022 Illinois CPA Society Lester H. McKeever Jr. Outstanding Leader in Advancing Diversity Award.