Dr. George Young

Dr. George Young, a faculty member at FAU since 1996, has served as the director of the School of Accounting, College of Business, since 2015. As director, he is responsible for all SOA undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs. In addition, he has oversight of the School of Accounting Executive Program’s, Master of Accounting degree with concentrations in forensic accounting, business valuation, digital accounting forensics and data analytics, and professional accounting and a Master of Taxation degree.

Dr. Young’s advice for students seeking a career in accounting? "Collect information from accounting faculty, persons currently working in accounting, friends, and relatives so that you have an idea of the work you'd like to perform after you graduate. Remember that each experience in accounting, just like in life, contributes to the person you become. No matter how trivial a task, there is always a benefit to performing it well," Dr. Young said. "Be prepared for opportunities; don't wait for an opportunity to arise before you prepare for it. Opportunities will come to you, just make certain you're prepared to take advantage of them."

While at FAU, Dr. Young has taught fraud examination, auditing, financial accounting, and tax. He is a Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Public Accountant who is licensed in Illinois where he practiced public accounting for nine years before entering academia. Before entering a Ph.D. program, this Midwesterner (he earned undergraduate and master’s degrees from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale) was a full-time instructor for four years at Indiana State University. After leaving ISU, he earned a doctorate from the University of Texas at Arlington.

During 2004 and 2005, he was a member of the Technical Working Task Group (sponsored by a National Institute of Justice grant administered by West Virginia University) that was charged with the responsibility to develop a model educational curriculum for fraud examination and forensic accounting. He later became chairperson of the Higher Education Advisory Committee of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and presently serves in an advisory capacity as a chair emeritus.

He is co-author of Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination (McGraw-Hill, 2e) and Essentials of Forensic Accounting (2e), published by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has published articles in academic journals such as Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory , Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research, Research on Accounting Ethics, Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting , and practice journals such as The Journal of Accountancy .

"My favorite memories at FAU involve the times when I've been able to help students achieve their dreams of graduation and a better life for themselves and finding and hiring extremely capable faculty, including assistant professors and adjuncts who have become the backbone of the programs in which they work," Dr. Young said. "In addition, I have really enjoyed delivering letters of promotion to faculty."