The C. Aubrey Smith Center
for Auditing Education & Research
About the C. Aubrey Smith Center for Auditing Education and Research:
The C. Aubrey Smith Center for Auditing Education & Research at the McCombs School of Business is dedicated to enhancing the theory and practice of auditing by:
Promoting and improving auditing education for those who plan to enter the accounting profession.
Conducting and disseminating research so as to advance the theory and practice of auditing.
Identifying, elucidating and helping to resolve issues facing the profession.
Providing independent views for the auditing profession to consider.
The Center currently sponsors regular virtual meetings of the McCombs AuditChats community, which facilitates discussions between academics, practitioners, and regulators on matters of importance in auditing education and research. The Center also hosts career discussions for entering or prospect auditing students and hosts the Texas Audit Research Symposium, which is a biennial conference held in-person on the campus of the University of Texas Austin.
Executive Committee:
The C. Aubrey Smith Center for Auditing Education and Research is funded by generous donations from the Aubrey Smith Family Foundation and is run by an executive committee (i.e., the Texas Trio) consisting of:
Jaime Schmidt
Jaime Schmidt leads the C. Aubrey Smith Center of Auditing Education & Research as its Executive Director. Jaime is a Professor of Accounting in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Jaime received a B.B.A., M.S. in Accounting, and M.S. in Education from Kansas State University and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. Jaime also worked in practice as an auditor for BKD (now Forvis). If you have any questions about the Center, you can reach Jaime via email at Jaime.Schmidt@mccombs.utexas.edu.
Nick Hallman
Nicholas (Nick) Hallman is an Associate Professor of Accounting in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Nick received a B.B.A., and M.S. in Accounting from Appalachian State Univeristy and Ph.D. from the Univeristy of Missouri Columbia. Before getting his Ph.D., Nick worked in practice as an auditor for Deloitte. You can reach him via email at Nicholas.Hallman@mccombs.utexas.edu.
Zach Kowaleski
Zach is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the McCombs School of Business. Zach was formerly on faculty at the University of Notre Dame, an Economic Research Fellow at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and he worked four years in PwC's audit practice between earning his BBA, MAcc, and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. You can reach him via email at zkowaleski@utexas.edu