About our authors
Karen Wilken Braun recently retired from her role as Professor of Accountancy in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). Though retired, she continues to teach personal finance classes and workshops to undergraduate students, faculty, and staff. During her time on faculty, Dr. Braun was awarded the “Outstanding Teacher of the Year” 5 times by the vote of undergraduate business students. In 2018, she was named one of Poets & Quants “Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors” in the country and in 2017, she was named “Business Information Professional of the Year” in the category of Education, by Beta Alpha Psi (national level). In 2016, Dr. Braun was awarded the prestigious Bea Sanders/AICPA Teaching Innovation Award for her development of Excel-based active-learning resources for introductory managerial accounting courses. While on the faculty of CWRU, she also served for several years as Beta Alpha Psi adviser and director of the undergraduate accounting program. Prior to her appointment at CWRU, Dr. Braun was on the faculty of the J.M. Tull School of Accounting at the University of Georgia, where she also was the recipient of a student-selected teaching award.
Dr. Braun is a Certified Public Accountant and holds membership in the American Accounting Association (AAA), the Institute of Management Accountants, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She also holds the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation and is a member of the AAA's Management Accounting Section as well as the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section. Dr. Braun has held leadership positions with the AAA's Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting (CTLA) including co-chairing the 2015 and 2016 conferences. Dr. Braun's research interests revolve around accounting education, sustainability, corporate responsibility, and lean operations. Dr. Braun's work has been published in Contemporary Accounting Research, Issues in Accounting Education, Journal of Accounting Education, and Strategic Finance.
Dr. Braun received her Ph from the University of Connecticut and her BA, thema cum laude, from Luther College, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Braun gained public accounting experience while working at Arthur Andersen & Co. and accumulated additional business and management accounting experience as a corporate controller.
Dr. Braun is married and has 2 daughters and 4 stepdaughters. She enjoys traveling, hiking, biking, gardening and skiing, especially when she can share those activities with family or friends.
Wendy M. Tietz is a professor for the Department of Accounting in the Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship at Kent State University. She teaches introductory financial and managerial accounting, advanced management accounting, and advanced accounting analytics and technology.
Dr. Tietz is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Management Accountant, and a Chartered Global Management Accountant and holds a Certificate in Strategy and Competitive Analysis. She is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer. Dr. Tietz also holds the SASB credential in Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting. She is a member of the American Accounting Association (AAA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She is a member of the AAA's Management Accounting Section as well as the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section. She has published in Strategic Finance, Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting, IMA Educational Case Journal, Issues in Accounting Education, Accounting Education: An International Journal, and Journal of Accounting & Public Policy. She regularly presents at AAA regional and national meetings.
Dr. Tietz was awarded the American Accounting Association/J. Michael and Mary Anne Cook/Deloitte Foundation Prize for undergraduate teaching in 2020. She also received the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) R. Lee Brummet Exemplary Educator Award in 2022 for her work, leadership, and service in the field of management accounting. Dr. Tietz authors a blog, Accounting in the Headlines, which has real-world news stories and resources for use in the introductory accounting classroom. She was awarded the Bea Sanders/AICPA Teaching Innovation Award for her blog and the Jim Bulloch/IMA Award for Innovations in Management Accounting Education, also for her blog. Dr. Tietz also was awarded the Jim Bulloch/IMA Award for Innovations in Management Accounting Education in 2020 for data analytics projects she co-developed. She was awarded the Best Educational/Case Award for the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section (AAA, Ohio Region) in 2016 and the Best Paper Award for the Ohio Region TLC in 2021. She has also received an Honorable Mention for the Bea Sanders/AICPA Teaching Innovation Award in 2018, 2019, and 2021 for cases she co-wrote on data analytics projects in introductory accounting.
Dr. Tietz has held leadership positions with the AAA's Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting (CTLA) including co-chairing the 2020 and 2021 conferences. She is the president of AAA's Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section (2022 to 2023), chair of the Ohio Regional Council of the Institute of Management Accountants (2021 to have 2022), a member of the AICPA's Academic Executive Committee, and a member or officer in a variety of other professional organizations.
Dr. Tietz earned her PhD from Kent State University. She received both her MBA and BSA from the University of Akron. She worked in industry for several years, both as a controller for a financial institution and as the operations manager and controller for a recycled plastics manufacturer
Dr. Tietz and her husband, Russ, have 2 grown sons. In her spare time, she enjoys walking, reading, playing games, and spending time with family and friends. She is also intensely interested in using technology in education.
