Biography

As a Certified Public Accountant and a business communications specialist, Rama Ramamurthy brings a unique range of experience to her position as Clinical Professor at the Mason School of Business. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Madras, Holy Cross College, in Tiruchirapalli, India, and then came to the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), where she earned another M.A. in English. Subsequently, she earned an M.B.A. and M.A.S. (Accounting) at the University of Illinois. At the Mason School of Business, Rama is 100% devoted to teaching; her course offerings include Principles of Accounting at the undergraduate level and an elective on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) at the graduate level.

Prior to August 2006, she was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Accounting and MIS at The Ohio State University (OSU), where she taught for nine years. Her areas of focus were financial accounting (intermediate and introductory levels), managerial accounting, and tax. At OSU, she was one of three instructors involved in implementing curriculum innovations in the introductory financial accounting class; her responsibility consisted of creating cases based on real-business scenarios to promote experiential learning of business and accounting concepts. She was also the communications specialist for the undergraduate accounting honors program.

Prior to moving to OSU in 1997, Rama was a Lecturer at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where she developed a comprehensive plan for integrating written and oral communication skills into the department's innovative Project Discovery accounting program. In June 2006, she received an award from the Ohio Society of CPAs as the sponsoring faculty of her student who won second place in the Society's manuscript competition. She also earned the University of Illinois Undergraduate Course Development Award in 1995 and was the recipient of the Illinois CPA Society & Foundation Grant in 1993.

Rama has facilitated several seminars and conferences on communication skills in business and accounting curriculum, the use of technology in teaching business communication, and group work and collaboration. At the American Accounting Association's 2006 annual meeting, she conducted a CPE workshop along with two other faculty members. At the annual meeting in 2008, she made a presentation about the IFRS module she had taught in the Master's course. She is a member of the American Accounting Association and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Rama is excited about the teaching opportunities at the Mason School of Business in the College of William & Mary. Her husband works as an independent IT consultant at the Ft. Lee Army base. They have one daughter who works as a tax professional in a public accounting firm.

Areas of Interest/Expertise

• Financial & Managerial Accounting
• International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
• Tax
• Business Communication