Academic biography

Dr Karen-Ann is a chartered accountant and an assistant professor in accounting in the DCU Business School and teaches in financial accounting, auditing and corporate governance. She is chairperson of the DCU BSSAX and BSSAO (incoming exchange students). Karen-Ann is a fellow member of Chartered Accountants Ireland and completed her accountancy training with KPMG. She has 11 years experience with KPMG (working in KPMG Dublin, KPMG Sydney and KPMG Luxembourg) and was an Associate Director in KPMG up to September 2013. Karen-Ann has also worked with Chartered Accountants Ireland in an exam capacity. Karen-Ann graduated from University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Commerce (International): French and from University College Dublin with a Master of Accounting.

She completed her PhD Auditor planning judgements: Audit materiality thresholds and auditor risk assessments in expanded audit reports at the University College Dublin in 2020, under the joint supervision of Prof Niamh Brennan and Dr Collette Kirwan. Her current research interests are in auditor planning judgements (audit materiality thresholds and auditor risks assessments) in expanded audit reports. Karen-Ann was awarded the Irish Accounting and Finance Association (IAFA)/American Accounting Association (AAA) travel bursary award for 2019 for her paper entitled “Influence of auditor risk assessments on audit materiality thresholds”. Karen-Ann was awarded the IAFA Scholar Award in 2017 for her paper An examination of audit materiality and risk in expanded audit reports. She received funding from the IAFA in 2016. Karen-Ann was awarded a UCD College of Business PhD fees scholarship in 2014.