Rate My Professor Denise Downey

Denise Hanes Downey, PhD, CPA, serves as Associate Chair of Accounting & Information Systems and KPMG Endowed Professor in Accounting at Villanova School of Business. A Philadelphia native and Villanova alumna, she earned her BS in 2005 and MA in 2008 from Villanova University School of Business, followed by a PhD from Bentley University. Prior to her academic career, Downey practiced as a CPA at PwC and was selected into the Accounting Doctoral Scholars program. She joined Villanova in 2013, where she was awarded tenure, and has held prestigious fellowships, including Senior Economic Research Fellow in the Office of Economic and Risk Analysis at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2017-2018) and KPMG National Faculty Fellow (2023-2025). She also contributed to the AICPA CPA Exam development team from 2020 to 2023. Downey has received Villanova summer research grants for projects on multinational company audit quality and firm quality control.

Downey's research specializes in auditor judgment and decision making within auditing and assurance, with emphasis on group audits, multinational audits, offshoring, and geographically dispersed audit teams. Her scholarship appears in premier journals including The Accounting Review, Accounting, Organizations and Society, and Contemporary Accounting Research. Key publications include 'The Perspective of US Group Audit Leads' (Contemporary Accounting Research, 2021), 'PCAOB Form AP: Leveraging Information about Audit Participants' (Contemporary Issues in Auditing, 2019), and 'The Economics of U.S. Multinational Group Audits: Evidence from PCAOB Data' (The Accounting Review, forthcoming 2026). She ranks 26th internationally for audit research over the past six years according to BYU rankings and top 20 globally in qualitative and experimental audit research. An acclaimed educator, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in auditing, advanced auditing, financial accounting, and international accounting, integrating emerging technologies and global issues. Her teaching excellence is recognized by the Poets&Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors of 2025, American Accounting Association Innovation in Auditing and Assurance Education Awards (2019, 2024), Issues in Accounting Education Best Paper Award (2023), and AICPA Effective Learning Strategies Honorable Mention (2021). Downey serves on editorial review boards, external doctoral committees in the U.S. and Europe, and contributes to professional practice through firm and regulatory engagements.