MACC Director Earns 2025 Accounting Horizons Best Paper Award for Research

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (May 19, 2025) — Kecia Williams Smith ’95, CPA, Ph.D., director of the Master of Accountancy (MACC) program at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics, has been named a recipient of the prestigious 2025 Accounting Horizons Best Paper Award by the American Accounting Association (AAA). The award recognizes exceptional scholarly contributions to the accounting profession and includes a $2,500 prize along with custom-designed glass artwork.

Smith shares this honor with her co-authors and Colorado State University professors Elizabeth N. Cowle, Ph.D., and Michelle A. Draeger, Ph.D. Their paper, “Accounting Firm Investment in Diverse Talent: Evidence from Charitable Giving to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs),” published in the March 2024 issue of Accounting Horizons, finds that while accounting firm donations to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have grown, they remain a small number of the total shares in giving. The paper also highlights the need for more equitable Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) investment strategies.

Smith and her team will formally receive their award at the AAA Annual Meeting on Aug. 5 in Chicago.

Smith, a tenured professor in the Deese College’s Department of Accounting and Finance, also is director of the Center for Accounting Opportunities, a licensed CPA in North Carolina and Georgia and was appointed last year to serve a three-year term on the N.C. State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners. Before joining her alma mater to lead the MACC program at its inception in 2019, she was an assistant professor of accounting and information systems at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. She also worked as a senior manager at Deloitte and held a regulatory role at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Smith’s scope of research includes audit quality, regulatory oversight, auditor judgment and the advancement of diversity in the accounting profession. Her work appears in scholarly journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and Issues in Accounting Education. She is an active member of several professional organizations including the American Institute of CPAs, the North Carolina Association of CPAs, the American Accounting Association and NABA, Inc.

Smith received her B.S. in accounting summa cum laude from A&T before earning her Ph.D. in accounting from Texas A&M University. She holds a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida Muma College of Business Office of Corporate Training and Professional Education.