Alumni Newsletter Fall 2019

Donald Compton Professor Compton has a 33-year career in Public Accounting including 20 years as a Partner working in all aspects of taxation including compliance, planning and research, and the auditing and accounting for income taxes on financial statements. Professor Compton has extensive international tax experiences including living and working in Russia, China, and Switzerland for a combined 9 years. Professor Compton is a licensed CPA for North Carolina. Professor Compton teaches Tax Impact on Decisions for Accounting undergraduates, Individual Taxation for Finance majors pursuing the Certified Financial Planning route, and graduate-level tax classes including Multi-jurisdictional Tax Concepts.

Liang Tan Dr. Liang Tan joined the Pamplin College of Business in the Fall of 2019. He received his Ph.D. in accounting information and management from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Dr. Tan’s research interests span financial accounting, tax and auditing. Recent topics he has examined include, for example, debt covenant violations, institutional investors, tax avoidance, and audit quality. His research has been published in top-tier accounting journals such as the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research and Review of Accounting Studies. Dr. Tan was formerly an assistant professor of accountancy at George Washington University, where he taught managerial accounting. Before embarking on his graduate studies, Dr. Tan was a certified public accountant in China and worked as a senior auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Beijing. Marshall Vance Marshall Vance joined the accounting and information systems faculty this Spring. Marshall’s research examines the design and effects of executive and broad-based compensation plans. His recent papers address the role of proxy advisory firms in the design of executive compensation, how managers weigh on-the-job performance vs. initial assessments of ability in making promotion decisions, and how employees respond to equity compensation plans, among other topics. Dr. Vance’s research has been published in elite accounting and management journals, including Journal of Accounting Research and Journal of International Business Studies. Marshall’s research has been recognized with multiple awards through the American Accounting Association, including twice receiving the Best Paper award at the Management Section Midyear Meeting. He has been awarded several competitive grants and fellowships to support his research, and Dr. Vance is a senior fellow of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University. Dr. Vance has taught both managerial and financial accounting courses. Prior to joining Virginia Tech Marshall taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Southern California, and the Wharton School.

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