Linette Rousseau, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is a recipient of the Deloitte Foundation’s 2020 Doctoral Fellowship in Accounting.
Designed for students planning on careers in higher education, the program awards only 10 such fellowships nationally each year from the approximately 100 institutions invited to submit applications. Individual awardees receive $25,000 to support their remaining coursework and dissertation. This year’s awardees include students from MIT, Michigan State University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Texas at Austin, among others.
“Linette exemplifies superior performance as a PhD student—she is self-motivated, creative, and willing to take chances with her research agenda,” says Karla Zehms, Ernst & Young Professor in Accounting and a professor of accounting at WSB.
“Linette’s dissertation will relate to the new auditor report model, in which auditors must explain the most complex judgments that they made during the client engagement. I’ve been her colleague on a paper, “Audit Partner Style in Key Audit Matter Reporting Decisions,” that explores distinctive auditor reporting styles under the new model. The Deloitte Fellowship recognizes excellent PhD students like Linette, and I am delighted to be serving as her PhD committee chairperson.”
Rousseau started the doctoral program in accounting at WSB in 2017 with a focus on auditor reporting and disclosure decisions. A CPA since 2017, she received the Elijah Watt Sells Award—an award granted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants—for outstanding performance on the national CPA exam. She received a UW–Madison Teaching Award in 2018. Rousseau holds a bachelor of arts in psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master of accountancy from Georgia Southern University. Prior to joining the doctoral program, she worked in KPMG’s federal government audit division in Washington, D.C.
WSB’s Department of Accounting and Information Systems has a strong track record for producing Deloitte Foundation Fellowship winners.
WSB doctoral candidate Mary Vernon was a Deloitte Foundation Fellowship awardee in 2019. Vernon’s area of focus is taxation. She has several research projects in progress and has co-authored articles with WSB accounting faculty.
In 2008, Marsha Keune (PhD ’10) received the Deloitte Foundation Fellowship while a doctoral student under advisor Jon Davis, then professor and chair of WSB’s Department of Accounting and Information Systems. Keune is now an associate professor at the University of Dayton.
Current WSB faculty member Thomas Linsmeier (PhD ’85), a professor of accounting and information systems and the Thomas G. Ragatz Accounting and Law Distinguished Chair, was awarded the fellowship (then known as the Deloitte Haskins & Sells Doctoral Fellowship) in 1982.
Founded in 1928, The Deloitte Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting U.S. education and excellence in teaching, research, and curriculum innovation. “Growing the pipeline as well as strengthening the quantity and quality of accounting professors is critical to developing the next generation of future leaders,” said Kathy Shoztic, Deloitte Foundation executive director in the company’s news release. “The 2020 Fellows will join more than 1,000 accounting PhD candidates who have received this award over the past 50 years. The Foundation is proud to continue our tradition of supporting these future educators who will in turn make a significant impact on the thousands of students they will teach over time.”
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