The American Accounting Association recognized two senior University of Georgia Terry College of Business faculty members for their study on the impact of analytics on professional auditors.
Margaret Christ, director of the J.M. Tull School of Accounting and J.M. Tull Chair in Accounting, and Tina Carpenter, UGA Josiah Meigs Teaching Professor and Dan Smith Professor in the Tull School, received the 2025 Deloitte Foundation Wildman Medal Award at the American Accounting Association’s summer conference in Chicago on Aug. 4.
The award, founded in 1978, recognizes and encourages accounting research with real-world impact on the practice of accounting. This year’s Deloitte Foundation Wildman Medal recognized Christ and Carpenter’s 2021 paper, “The Data Analytics Journey: Interactions Among Auditors, Managers, Regulation and Technology” which was published in Contemporary Accounting Research.
“Tina and Margaret’s work on how data analytics is shaping today’s business environment and serves as an example of how academic work can have a tangible and immediate impact on the professional world,” said Mike Pfarrer, associate dean for research and executive programs at the Terry College. “It’s a testament to our faculty’s commitment to advancing knowledge and providing practical insights that shape the future of business and accounting.”
Christ and Carpenter co-authored the paper with former UGA doctoral students Ashley Austin, now an associate professor at the University of Richmond, and Christy S. Nielson, an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi.
The team uncovered emerging tensions among companies, auditors and regulators as new data analytics technologies became more mainstream for companies and their outside auditors. Through interviews with managers and auditors, they found the lack of accounting regulation specific to data analytics caused confusion and frustration.
Christ has been at the Tull School since 2008 and was named its director in 2024. Her research explores accounting innovation—particularly data analytics and technology—and its effects on organizational risk, management control systems and employee behavior. In addition to her research, she collaborates with the EY Academic Resource Center to advance teaching on analytics and innovation mindsets. She recently co-authored a cost accounting textbook that emphasizes data analytics.
Carpenter joined the faculty of the Tull School in 2004. Her research focuses on human judgment, teams, fraudulent financial reporting and emerging technologies. She has won multiple national research awards and national and university teaching awards for integrating new technologies into the classroom experience.
The J.M. Tull School of Accounting, housed in the Terry College, is ranked as the nation’s 11th best undergraduate accounting program. According to Brigham Young University’s accounting research rankings, Tull’s faculty are nationally ranked 8th in research productivity.