Eminent Scholar named to advisory position at PCAOB

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Frederick E. Fisher Eminent Scholar Chair Dr. Robert Knechel was appointed to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) Standing Advisory Group.

The PCAOB is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to protect investors and the public interest by promoting informative, accurate, and independent audit reports and to oversee the audits of public companies and broker-dealers. The Standing Advisory Group, which includes auditors, investors, public company executives, and scholars among others, advises the PCAOB on the development of auditing and related professional practice standards.

Dr. Knechel’s three-year term in the Standing Advisory Group begins Jan. 1, 2017.

Dr. Knechel, who serves as Director of the International Center for Research in Accounting and Auditing at the Fisher School, is one of the world’s leading scholars in the audit research community. He holds formal teaching positions at Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium and the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and has served as a visiting professor at many of Europe’s most prestigious universities in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Slovakia. He was named to the newly-created Dutch Foundation for Auditing Research in October 2015.

Dr. Knechel was most recently honored with the Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory Best Paper Award during the American Accounting Association’s—Auditing Sections Midyear Meeting in January.

Dr. Knechel has published more than 50 research articles in numerous academic journals including the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Accounting Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research, Decisions Sciences Journal, Accounting Horizons and Issues in Accounting Education.

Dr. Knechel received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Delaware in 1977 and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 1981.