Abigail Zhang

Assistant Professor, Accounting

Chanyuan (Abigail) Zhang Parker

Contact

Bio

Personal Faculty Website

Abigail serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Accounting at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) since July 2023. Prior to joining UTSA, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She earned her Ph.D. in Accounting from Rutgers Business School in May 2022.

Specializing in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and accounting, Abigail's research focuses on the transformative impact of AI on accounting and auditing practices. Her work has garnered the attention of key accounting regulators such as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), as well as industry practitioners.

Abigail has taught an array of courses, including Accounting Information Systems, Introduction to Managerial Accounting, and Auditing at the undergraduate level; Robotic Process Automation for master’s programs; and Information Technology at the MBA level. She is also a co-author and instructor for the AICPA's audit automation course modules.

Research Interests

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI), Generative AI, Explainable AI
  • Machine Learning
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Auditing
  • Financial Reporting Quality
  • Disclosures
  • Accounting Information Systems

Degrees

  • Ph.D. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA
  • B.S. Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China

Publications

  • "Going Concern Opinions (GCOs) Are Noisy and Biased – How Can Machine Learning Improve Going Concern Assessments?" With Yu Gu (Rutgers) and Miklos Vasarhelyi (Rutgers). Accepted for presentation at the 2023 PCAOB Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets. Under review.
  • "Towards A Real-Time Financial Statement Fraud Detection Using Machine Learning," With Lanxin Jiang (Rutgers) and Miklos Vasarhelyi (Rutgers). Accepted for presentation at the 2023 PCAOB Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets. Under review.
  • "Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Financial Reporting Quality," With Divya Anantharaman (Rutgers) and Andrea Rozario (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). Accepted for presentation at the 2022 PCAOB Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets. Under Review.
  • "Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) in auditing,"  with Soohyun Cho, Miklos Vasarhelyi, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Vol. 46, 2022, p. 100572.
  • "Robotic process automation implementation case studies in accounting: a beginning to end perspective," with Hussein Issa, Andrea Rozario and Jonas Sveistrup Soegaard,  Accounting Horizons.
  • "How to teach a 14-week robotic process automation course for accounting students," with Mikos A. Vasrahelyi, Issues of Accounting Education, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2022, p. 21-39.
  • "Attended automation in audit: A framework and a pilot implementation," with Chanta Thomas and Mikos A. Vasrahelyi, Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2021, p. 101-124.
  • "Intelligent process automation in audit," Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2019, p. 69-88.