Accounting Division

Tim Baldenius re-joined Columbia Business School's faculty in 2017. He teaches an elective course on performance measurement as well as Ph.D. seminars on managerial accounting and applied contract theory.

His primary research interests include managerial accounting, performance measurement, and corporate governance.  His work has been published in leading accounting, economics, and finance journals.

Thomas Bourveau joined Columbia University in 2018. He previously served on the faculty at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He obtained in PhD in Management Science from HEC Paris. He teaches financial statement analysis in Columbia Business School's MBA program. Professor Bourveau primarily conducts empirical research. His research lies at the intersection of accounting, law, and economics. He is most interested in evaluating the implications of regulatory interventions in financial markets, often through the role of information disclosure.

Matthias Breuer is an Associate Professor of Business in the Accounting Division of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.  In his research, he examines issues of corporate transparency and information verification, with a particular focus on the role of regulation in addressing corporate information issues.  His research has been recognized with multiple awards (e.g., the 2019 and 2021 Best Paper Awards of the American Accounting Association’s FARS Midyear Meetings), presented at leading universities and conferences, and published in reputable journals (e.g., the

Wei Cai joined Columbia University in 2020. Her research interests revolve around management accounting, organizational culture, and diversity and inclusion. Her research broadly investigates how to measure and manage key organizational capital. For example, she examines how corporate leaders and managers can deliberately design and shape organizational culture, and improve organizational outcomes through innovative management control systems. She uses multiple research methods including statistical analyses of archival data sources, field experiments, and surveys.

Matthew Dell Orfano is a Senior member at Discovery Capital, focusing globally on multiple sectors, thematic trade construction, and special situations, in addition to managing their data efforts.  He is responsible for individual positions and the internal thematically driven portfolio, which assimilates bottoms-up analysis and macro thematic from over 55 countries into actionable insights.

Jonathan Glover is the George O. May Professor of Financial Accounting and Chair of the Accounting Division at Columbia Business School. His research interests include financial and managerial accounting, public policy, accounting history, information economics, mechanism design, incentive theory, and relational contracts. The topics he has worked on include earnings management, accounting conservatism, financial accounting standard setting and regulation, corporate governance, information system design, performance measurement, and managerial compensation.

Professor Bruce C. N. Greenwald is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor Emeritus of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School and the academic Director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing. Described by the New York Times as "a guru to Wall Street's gurus," Greenwald is an authority on value investing with additional expertise in productivity and the economics of information.

Professor Harris' research and practical experience has covered most areas of the use of accounting information for valuation, investment and management decisions, with a particular focus on global aspects and financial institutions.

Anne Heinrichs joined Columbia University in 2014 with PhD and MBA degrees from the University of Chicago and five years of work experience in investment banking, private equity and accounting. She is a CFA Charterholder and has financial advisor licenses in securities, derivatives and regulations. Professor Heinrichs develops a new elective course titled "Corporate Transactions and Financial Modelling" that she teaches to MBA and EMBA students in Spring.

Kalash Jain joined Columbia University in 2023. His research examines the impact of  information processing frictions and investor decision making on asset prices and firm investment. He received his PhD, MBA, and BA from the University of Chicago. Prior to pursuing his graduate studies, he was an investment banking analyst in Citi's Financial Strategy and Solutions Group.

Areas of expertise: 
Financial Accounting & Auditing

Sehwa Kim joined Columbia University in 2019. His research interests include regulation and reporting standards on financial institutions. His research has been presented at leading conferences and published in the Accounting Review and the Journal of Accounting Research. He received a Ph.D. in Business (Accounting), MBA, and MS in Statistics from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor‘s degree in Business Administration from Seoul National University. Prior to earning his Ph.D., he worked as a loan officer and relationship manager in Korea Development Bank

Pauline Lam teaches Financial Accounting at Columbia University. Her broad research interests include ESG, financial statement analysis, standard setting, and auditing. She is currently a visiting scholar at NYU Stern working on post-doctorate publications, in particular, the credibility of ESG commitments and the nature of the projects funded by green bonds. The green bond research project currently receives funding from NYU Stern. Other ESG research includes regulatory impacts related to ESG practices.

Edward Li is Adjunct Associate Professor at CBS. He teaches the MBA courses -- Core Financial Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis and Valuation. 

Lisa Yao Liu joined Columbia University in 2020. Her research interests include financial reporting regulations and information technologies, with a particular focus on auditing and ESG/stakeholder-related matters. Professor Liu uses different research methods including empirical archival methods, structural estimation, and field survey and interviews. Her research has been presented at leading conferences and published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics and the Journal of Accounting Research.

Professor Nissim earned his PhD in Accounting at the University of California, Berkeley, and joined Columbia Business School in 1997. He was granted tenure in 2005, and full professorship in 2007. He served as the Chair of the Accounting Division during the years 2006–2009 and 2014–2016.

Stephen Penman is the George O. May Professor in the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University where he is also co-director of the Center for Excellence in Accounting and Security Analysis and director of the Masters Program in Accounting and Fundamental Analysis.

Shiva Rajgopal is the Roy Bernard Kester and T.W. Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing at Columbia Business School. He has also been a faculty member at the Duke University, Emory University and the University of Washington. Professor Rajgopal’s research interests span financial reporting, earnings quality, fraud, executive compensation and corporate culture.  His research is frequently cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week, and the Economist.

Benjamin Segal is an associate professor of accounting. He received his PhD in accounting from the Stern School of Business at NYU. In addition, he received an MBA in finance, a BA in economics and an LLB in law from Tel-Aviv University. Professor Segal directed and taught in executive, MFIN and MBA programs at INSEAD France and Singapore, as well as the University of California, Davis, and at NYU. His teaching interests include financial reporting and the analysis of financial information.

Professor Igor Vaysman is an award-winning teacher and an expert in performance evaluation, information-system design, and transfer pricing.

He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and has taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Texas at Austin; the University of Chicago; INSEAD; NYU; and Columbia University. He is currently a professor at the Zicklin School of Business at the City University of New York where he teaches in the MBA and MS programs; he also teaches in Columbia University’s Global EMBA program.

Sang Wu joined Columbia University in 2022. Her research focuses on the role of information in the interaction between agents, along with its implications on the real efficiency and the price efficiency of financial markets. She uses analytical models as a tool to explain empirical anomalies in accounting practices and institutions that contradict conventional wisdom.

Professor Ziv stepped down in 2013 from the Vice Dean position at Columbia Business School and became a Professor of Professional Practice.  As a Vice Dean, among other responsibilities, he was overseeing Admission, MBA Students Affairs, EMBA, Career Management and the Samberg Institute for Teaching Excellence.  Before rejoining Columbia Business School as a Vice Dean, Professor Ziv served on the faculties of Yale School of Management, Columbia Business School, and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC) – where he was a Professor of Accounting and founded and headed the execu