Planning Committee Biographies
Current Advisory Board
Kimberly Swanson Church, PhD
Director & FORV/S Professor of Leadership
Missouri State University
Dr. Kimberly Swanson Church is the FORV/S professor of leadership and director for the School of Accountancy at Missouri State University. She teaches in the area of managerial and accounting information systems with an emphasis in data analytics and emerging technologies. She has two decades of entrepreneurial and higher education experience, including more than 10 years in academic leadership roles with American Accounting Association (AIS and TLC sections), the American Institute of CPAs (CPA Evolution BAR Taskforce Co-Chair and APBP initiative trainer), and IMA (campus advocate, local board member, and committee on academic relations taskforce). Dr. Church is the recipient of many educator awards, including the 2021 MOCPA Outstanding Educator, 2021 IMA R. Lee Brummet Distinguished Service Award for Educators, 2020 IMA Faculty Leadership Award, 2019 IMA Faculty Leadership Award, 2019 IMA Champion Award and the 2018 IMA-KC Chapter Outstanding Educator Award.
Dr. Church works actively with a variety of professional organizations and serves as a frequent invited speaker on topics related to professional development and technology disruptions in the accounting profession. She is a national award-winning educator for her many classroom innovations using experiential learning techniques that best best reflect real-world application of accounting concepts, including the George Krull/Grant Thornton, Jim Bulloch management accounting, and disruptive technology implications for theory and practice. She has published many academic and practitioner articles and won several best paper awards, including the 2021 Horizons Best Paper Award. Her articles have appeared in Accounting Horizons, Journal of Information Systems, Issues in Accounting Education, Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting, Journal of Accounting Education, BizEd and Strategic Finance.
Rebekah Heath, PhD
Teaching professor
Kansas State University
Rebekah Sheely Heath has been teaching all areas of accounting for the past 20 years. She has been nominated for seven university and college teaching awards over her career. Becky earned her PhD in accounting from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in 1999 and has obtained the CPA and CIA certifications. Becky is currently employed at Kansas State University as a teaching professor – the first in the College of Business.
Becky primarily performs research in the area of accounting education. She has published in Accounting Horizons, Advances in Accounting, Advances in Accounting Education, CPA Journal Internal Auditor, Internal Auditing, Journal of Business Case Studies, and Journal of Applied Business Research.
Kim Luken
Assistant Teaching Professor
University of Missouri - Kansas City
Kim began teaching for the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri – Kansas City in fall 2023. Prior to that she taught for Metropolitan Community Colleges “MCC” for 15 years. Kim’s course load is primarily comprised of teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting and coordinating the student run Voluntary Income Tax Assistance “VITA” site hosted on the UMKC campus. Kim teaches both in the classroom and online. Kim’s favorite thing about teaching the first accounting course is discovering those students who have never considered accounting as a career. She loves finding students with a natural aptitude for accounting and then pushing them to realize it! Prior to teaching Kim worked in public accounting, first with Deloitte, and then Ernst & Young as a tax consultant. Kim does continue to hold her CPA license in Missouri. In addition to teaching Kim is married and mom to a sixteen-year-old sports-loving boy. She enjoys cooking, reading, and given a week off she would spend it on the beach.
Bruce Runyan, PhD
Associate Teaching Professor, Accounting
University of Missouri - Columbia
Dr. Bruce Runyan is an associate teaching professor of accounting at the University of Missouri - Columbia. He teaches primarily in the areas of financial and managerial accounting with an emphasis on emerging technologies. After a career in public accounting and software development, he taught his first accounting class in 1995 and has been in academic since completing coursework at Texas A&M University in 2003. Dr. Runyan started accounting conferences in east Texas, western North Carolina, and north Texas. He has been advisor to the Professional Accountants Student Society (PASS) and Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA). He is active in the Institute of Management Accountants and regularly organizes student attendance at the IMA Student Leadership Conference.
Pamela J. Schmidt, PhD, MBA, ISACA, CRISC
William Lyman Dibble Professorship
Associate Professor
School of Business, Washburn University
Dr. Pamela J. Schmidt is an associate professor in the Washburn University School of Business and holds the William Lyman Dibble Professorship and ISACA's CRISC certification. She earned her PhD in Information Systems with an emphasis in accounting from the University of Arkansas, an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. She chairs the HICSS conference Enterprise Ecosystem track, chaired the Journal of Information Systems (JIS) 2018 Research Conference and edited the JIS's special issue on AIS and cloud computing. Her research interests include data analytics, enterprise systems, accounting information systems, IS controls, cloud computing and blockchain. The American Accounting Association voted to bestow her with the 2021 Accounting Horizons Best Paper Award, along with her co-authors Jennifer Riley and Kim Church for the research article "Investing Accountants' Resistance to Move beyond Excel and Adopt New Data Analytics Technology" Accounting Horizons, December 2020, Volume 34, Issue 4, pp. 165-180. Her co-authored "A Review of ERP Research: A Future Agenda for Accounting Information Systems (2011)" was the top cited paper in AAA's Journal of Information Systems (2005 Report). Dr. Schmidt's prior business experience includes computer systems architect, operating systems developer, and project manager at SBC/Ameritech/AT&T serving the 5 state area, headquartered in downtown Chicago.
Lindsay Wolf Smith
Marketing Manager- Accounting and Proctorio
McGraw Hill Education
Lindsay Wolf Smith is a Marketing Manager at McGraw Hill Education. She manages internal and external marketing campaigns for McGraw Hill’s best-selling accounting franchises and the partnership between McGraw Hill and Proctorio, the online proctoring solution integrated within Connect. Before this Lindsay was a Learning Technology Representative managing higher education institutions in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Her success led her to receive honors such as top sales representative, best editorial performance of the year, and a nomination for marketing manager of the year.
Lindsay is a graduate of Drake University, where she studied Business and English. While in college she worked at the bookstore not realizing this would be her future. Her publishing journey began immediately after graduation as a sales representative and has continued at different companies in various roles and capacities her entire career. McGraw Hill has been her home since 2017 and she is proud to be working in partnership with authors and the portfolio team on helping make McGraw Hill products the best in the business. Lindsay has served on the AAES planning committee since 2017 and enjoys collaborating with educators to support the development of accounting education.
Kristen Whiteley
Assistant Professor, Accounting
Park University
Kristen Whitely joined Park University as an assistance professor in August 2020. Prior to joining Park, she spent seven years at Benedictine College as an assistant professor. In addition, she served one year as the accounting department chair. Kristen has taught a wide range of accounting classes, including Principles of Financial Accounting, Principles of Managerial Accounting, Intermediate Financial Accounting I and II, Advanced Financial Accounting I and II, Individual Income Tax, Business Income Tax, and Cost Accounting. Prior to teaching, Kristen spent 10 years at Cerner Corporation in the tax department, where she left as a tax manager. Prior to that, she spent one year at Arthur Andersen LLP and KPMG LLP as a tax associate. Kristen earned her bachelor's degree in accounting from William Jewell College and her MSA, with an emphasis in taxation, at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. Kristen is an actively licensed CPA in the state of Missouri. Kristen lives in Smithville, Missouri with her husband, Dusty, and their three boys, Brady, Cooper, and Tucker.
Jeff Wright
Executive Associate Professor of Accounting
Helzberg School of Management, Rockhurst University
Jeff Wright has been involved with the Conference since its inception until the present time. He joined the full-time faculty at Johnson County Community College in 1982 and retired in 2012 to take a full-time position at Rockhurst University teaching Financial, Managerial, and Intermediate Accounting as well as Accounting Information Systems. He continued his academic career there until 2023 returning to JCCC as Professor Emeritus. In addition to his classroom responsibilities, he continues to be actively involved in career and professional development with students at JCCC and Rockhurst. Jeff's first teaching position was at the University of Kansas as an associate instructor of accounting. Jeff also has diverse experience as a practitioner. He was a member of the audit staff at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell (KPMG) where he left as a senior accountant, was the first corporate controller for Beaver Creek Resort Company in Colorado and was a cost engineer/project auditor on the Trans Alaska Pipeline. Jeff is a CPA and has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Administration and an MBA from the University of Kansas.
Gail L. Yarick, PhD, CPA, CIA
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Pittsburg State University
Dr. Gail Yarick is an Associate Professor of Accounting in the Kelce College of Business at Pittsburg State University and she has obtained CPA and CIA certifications. Dr. Yarick earned her PhD in accounting from Northcentral University and her MBA and BBA from Pittsburg State University. She has professional experience in internal audit, public accounting (audit and tax), corporate accounting, and non-profit accounting. Dr. Yarick has taught full-time at PSU since 2009 and her primary teaching areas currently include financial accounting, internal auditing, external auditing, and financial statement analysis. Dr. Yarick is the coordinator of the Internal Auditing Education Partnership (IAEP) and faculty advisor for the Institute of Internal Auditors Student Chapter and the Institute of Management Accountants Student Chapter at PSU. Dr. Yarick received the PSU Outstanding Faculty Award in 2017 and the Kelce College of Business Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023. Dr. Yarick's research is primarily focused in the area of accounting education. Besides teaching, Dr. Yarick enjoys serving PSU and the surrounding community on numerous committees and boards and spending time with her husband and three kids.