Melanie Millar

Professional Summary

Melanie Millar is an assistant professor in the Department of Accounting and Business Law. She researches judgment and decision-making in accounting. Specifically, Millar examines how accounting can promote—or deter—prosocial choices, so she investigates decision-making in sustainability, fraud, and audit contexts. She teaches financial accounting, specifically the introduction and intermediate II courses.

Millar earned her PhD from Emory University. Prior to that, she worked as a financial statement auditor for Johnson Lambert & Co. LLP out of their Northern Virginia and Raleigh, North Carolina, offices. She worked on publicly traded company clients and specialized in property and casualty insurance as well as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) nonprofit audits. She is a certified professional accountant (Virginia, 2006) and a member of the American Accounting Association.

Education

• 2016 – PhD, Accounting, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
• 2005 – BBA, Accounting with Chemistry minor, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Courses

• ACC 2303 – Financial Accounting
• ACC 3302 – Financial Accounting and Reporting II

Research Interests

• Judgment and Decision-making in Accounting
• Sustainability
• Ethical Decision-making
• Cognitive Biases
• Audit, Financial Reporting, and Fraud

Selected Publications

• Douthit, J., Millar, M., & White, R. M. (2021). Horseshoes, hand grenades, and regulatory enforcement: Close experience with potential sanctions and fraud deterrence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 166, 137-148.
• Millar, M., R. M. White, and X. Zheng. Substance Abuse and Workplace Fraud: Evidence from Physicians. Journal of Business Ethics (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05065-6
• Nickell, E., K. Brasel, and M. Millar. The Danger of Assessing Management Attitudes: An Examination of the Dilution Effect in Auditors’ Fraud Risk Assessments. Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting, forthcoming.