Center for Business Forensics
The mission of Rider University's Center for Business Forensics is to help create a competent workforce and a robust knowledge base that can meet the challenges of dealing with corporate fraud and the many forms of computer crime. Located in the College of Business Administration, the CBF takes a multidisciplinary approach in providing instruction to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as in professional development programming for corporate, law enforcement and government organizations. The Accounting department and Computer Information Systems department provide the faculty expertise.
The CBF’s definition of forensics goes beyond investigation and prosecution to include compliance with government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), and prevention of crimes such as corporate fraud, identity theft, computer hacking and terrorism. Its strategy is investigation and analysis can create knowledge to be used for prevention, prosecution and compliance. The CBF will partner with The Cyber Crimes and Forensics Institute, a multi-university, cross-disciplinary program that will address issues related to forensics that are vital to law enforcement at all levels of government.
Explore the different elements of the CBF:
Objectives
- To provide undergraduate students with the foundation and basic investigatory skills through computer forensics and fraud and business forensics courses that lead to a major in either Accounting or Computer Information Systems and a Certificate in Business Forensics.
- To provide graduate students with the opportunity to achieve a degree specializing in forensics through the Master of Accountancy program that will give them the experience to conduct sophisticated investigative and analytical work.
- To provide sustained professional development programming and consulting services education to corporate, law enforcement and government organizations. There will be conferences, tailored short and long courses and a certification program.
- To conduct research that expands the knowledge base and serves to enlighten companies, law enforcement agencies and governmental organizations on issues and developments in the business forensics field.
- To form partnerships to enhance discussion and exchange of business forensic knowledge and to collaborate with practitioners on their current projects.
- To be known as a point of collection for the most current and up to date information in the field and to schedule timely, informative conferences.
Faculty
Rider faculty from the Accounting, Computer Information Systems, and Law and Justice programs, as well as a large contingent of corporate practitioners, will serve as instructors. Some are listed below.
- Dr. William J. Amadio, professor of Computer Information Systems and director of the Center for Business Forensics. His teaching specialty is data mining, which is extraction of patterns and useful information from large data sets. Amadio is the developer of the Exploration Engine (patent pending), an advanced computer search technology that automatically identifies topics in a collection of documents and allows the user to search the collection with more precision than is currently available.
- Dr. Thomas A. Brettell, director, New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences.
- Dr. Margaret O'Reilly-Allen, CPA associate professor and chair of the Accounting department is a specialist in auditor communications and issues in financial reporting. She has published in The CPA Journal and Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, and Review of Accounting Information System and numerous other journals.
- Dr. Dorothy A. McMullen, CPA, CFE associate professor of Accounting, is an expert on corporate fraud. Her research interests are in the areas of fraudulent financial reporting and forensics, audit committees and corporate governance. Her work has appeared in Issues in Accounting Education, Auditing a Journal of Theory and Practice, Journal of Accountancy, Accounting Horizons and Review of Accounting Information Systems.
- Dr. Larry M. Prober, CPA, CMA CVA, CRRA associate professor of Accounting, is an expert on quality of earnings issues as well as business valuations. He is a financial consultant and has served as an expert witness in regulatory hearings. His work has appeared in American Business Review, Journal of International Business and Economy and Pennsylvania CPA Journal.
- Dr. J. Drew Procaccino, associate professor of Computer Information Systems, is an expert in biometrics and smart-card technologies. He is a co-author of an extensive survey of smart-card technologies published by Elsevier/Academic Press in Advances in Computers, Volume 60, Information Security.
- Dr. Maria H. Sanchez, CPA assistant professor of Accounting, is a specialist in auditing and fraud detection. She has published in the Journal of Forensic Accounting, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy and numerous other journals.
- Arthur R. Taylor, lecturer in Computer Information Systems, is a computer-security expert. He has an analysis of Windows vs. Linux security features forthcoming in Enterprise Information Systems Assurance and Systems Security: Managerial and Technical Issues, published by Idea Group Publishing. He is also a co-author of Hacking Exposed: J2EE and Java published by McGraw-Hill-Osborne.
- Paul E. Zikmund, Deloitte & Touche and an adjunct faculty member who teaches forensics accounting on the graduate level. He is former director of forensic audit for Tyco International and former director of fraud investigative services for The Dow Chemical Company.
Rider's CBF is also a partner in the Cyber Crime and Forensics Institute, a multi-university, cross-disciplinary program with East Stroudsburg University and Drexel University that addresses issues related to computer forensics that are vital to law enforcement at all levels of government. The Institute will fulfill three objectives: (1) education and development of the next-generation computer forensics practitioners for U.S. law enforcement; (2) assistance to law enforcement agencies in personnel training and expert resources for consultation and analysis; and (3) cross disciplinary state-of-the-art research in computer forensics. This research will develop computer crime countermeasures (including the identification and preservation of evidence), maintain the highest level of awareness of trends in computer crime and work with established professional organizations to develop basic professional standards in computer forensics.
