Class of 2016: Ed deHaan
In the academic world, returning as faculty to the school from which you earned your doctorate is no easy maneuver. Yet here—again—is Ed deHaan (PhD 2013), rejoining the UW Foster School Department of Accounting as an assistant professor after three standout years of teaching and research at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
DeHaan began his career in audit and consulting at KPMG in the Bay Area, where he helped large corporations, non-profits and multilateral agencies execute sweeping international development projects in places such as Myanmar and Ghana.
When he began PhD studies at Foster in 2009, deHaan’s consulting experiences indirectly shaped his initial research into ways corporations seek to influence the media in order to repair their reputation after committing fraud.
The study launched deHaan into a fascinating array of investigations centered around a theme of market intermediaries: media, analysts, credit rating agencies, regulators, and how they are improving or detracting from the market. In subsequent papers, he has measured the effect of weather on analyst forecasts, examined the market impact of emerging “robo-journalism” in financial reporting, and documented the consequences on SEC enforcement of high turnover among its pool of trial lawyers.
And while his award-winning work has been published in the top accounting journals and cited frequently in the popular press, deHaan has found as much success in the classroom.
At Foster, he earned the PhD Teaching Award in 2011. At Stanford, he was a Shanahan Faculty Fellow and two-time winner of the MSx Distinguished Teaching Excellence Award for his contributions to its high-profile program for experienced global leaders.
DeHaan sees the dual roles of the modern academic as symbiotic, if not always complementary.
“My job as a researcher feels at times quite different from my job as an instructor,” says deHaan, who will teach financial accounting in the MBA core this fall at Foster. “But I have to bring the two together in order to keep my students engaged and to make my classes relevant. I take a lot of ideas from the classroom to inform my research. And we talk a lot in my class about information asymmetries and how information flows from companies to users and how users interpret that information, which is a big theme in my research. I find that the interplay keeps things a lot more exciting for students and for me. And it’s what gives us value as an educational institution.”
Ed deHaan
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Education & Experience
PhD (accounting), University of Washington Foster School of Business, 2013
Assistant Professor, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 2013-2016
MSx Distinguished Teaching Excellence Award, Stanford GSB, 2016 (2014)
Shanahan Faculty Fellow, Stanford University GSB, 2014-15
PhD Teaching Award, UW Foster School, 2011
Certified Public Accountant (inactive), California, 2004
Worked in audit and consulting, KPMG, 2004-2008
Research
Published in leading accounting journals, including Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, and Contemporary Accounting Research
Ad hoc referee, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, Accounting Horizons, and Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting
Expertise
Investor relations, voluntary disclosures, SEC enforcement, governance, market intermediaries
Extracurricular:
Has traveled (for work and pleasure) to more than 40 countries, most recently China, South Africa, Vietnam, and India
