Award Winning Educators Share Classroom AI Experience
In this webinar, Wayne Thomas, Mike Drake, and Jake Thornock discuss ideas for how to embrace AI in your accounting classroom. They share their own experiences—what worked and what to avoid—from their undergraduate and graduate classes. They also share several cases for studying and learning that have been successfully received by students to personalize and adapt their own learning experience. In particular, they discuss AI prompting, cases, error detection, real-world applications, and more.
George Lynn Cross Research Professor
David C. Steed Chair in Accounting
Wayne Thomas joined the University of Oklahoma in 2000. He teaches intermediate and financial accounting at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has received numerous teaching awards at the department, college, university, state, and national levels, including being named Outstanding Accounting Educator by the Oklahoma Society of CPAs and receiving the Cook Prize from the American Accounting Association for undergraduate teaching excellence.
Thomas is the co-author of several textbooks. His research interests include accounting information in capital markets, earnings manipulation techniques, the importance of financial disclosures, and financial statement analysis. His work has been published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Accounting, Organizations and Society, and several other journals. He has served as an editor for The Accounting Review and as an associate editor for the Journal of International Accounting Research. He received the Competitive Manuscript Award from the American Accounting Association and was named a George Lynn Cross Research Professor, the University of Oklahoma’s highest research designation.
Thomas has been married to Julee since 1990, and they have four children and two grandchildren. He enjoys tennis, golf, biking, the outdoors, volunteer activities, and most of all, spending time with his family.
Michael Drake is the K. Fred Skousen Professor of Accounting in the BYU Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. Before joining BYU, he was on faculty in the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University and a doctoral student in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, where he was a Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellow. Prior to his graduate work, he worked in public accounting at Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young.
Michael teaches Financial Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels and has won several teaching awards, including the MBA Core Professor of the Year award in several consecutive years and the BYU Marriott School Teaching Excellence Award.
Michael’s primary research interest is in capital markets with a specific focus on the intermediaries and technologies that facilitate price formation. His research has been published in top academic journals, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and Management Science. He has won several awards at the academy, university, and college level for his research, including multiple best paper awards and the BYU Young Scholar award. Michael currently serves on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research.
Michael is married to McKenzie, and they have five children, Gavin, Abbie, Quentin, Maxwell, and Hannah. He enjoys playing, coaching, and watching all sports.
Jake Thornock is a professor of accounting in the BYU Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University and holds the John and Nancy Hardy Chaired Professorship. He joined BYU from the University of Washington, where he was a tenured associate professor of accounting and the PwC Faculty Fellow. Jake completed his doctoral studies at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, where he was awarded the William Delozier Fellowship for Outstanding Doctoral Student. He earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in accounting at BYU.
Jake has diverse research interests, including interest in taxation, tax havens, earnings information content, and information technologies. His research has been accepted for publication at the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Management Science. Jake’s research has been cited or featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fox News, and NPR, and has been presented at the IRS, the SEC, and a congressional subcommittee. Jake currently serves as an editor at Contemporary Accounting Research.
Jake has taught Accounting at undergraduate and graduate levels. He was won several awards for teaching, mentoring, research, and innovation in the classroom. He also co-founded Accounting Coding Camp with Mike Drake and Josh Lee, which provides coding education to graduate students in Accounting and Finance.
Jake is married to Kerrie, and they have four children, Allie, Luke, Mia, and Josie. He enjoys audiobooks, enjoys college sports, and is an ardent fly fisherman.