Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts, Professor of Accounting, is motivated by a deep concern for unethical financial reporting and non-transparent corporate accounting, considering the potential for catastrophic effects on the environment, community trust, and the global economy.

Having long been interested in environmental issues and professional accounting, Roberts engages her students in discussions that address both honorable and unlawful corporate practices, as well as historical cases that will naturally elicit debate. She ensures students carry a greater awareness of the importance of transparency with them into their future careers.

Roberts is Associate Editor of Accounting and the Public Interest, an American Accounting Association journal. She is the former chair of the American Accounting Association's Professionalism and Ethics Committee and was the director of the 15th and the 21st Annual Ethics Research Symposium.

• PhD, Accounting from the University of California, Irvine
• MS, Accounting from California State University, Sacramento
• BA, Economics, University of California, Davis

• University of San Francisco Post Sabbatical Merit Award, Spring 2023.

• 2023 Accounting Historians Journal Award of Excellence for Diane H. Roberts, 2022. Follow in Footsteps:  The First CPAs of 1896-97 and Accounting Occupation Adoption of the Next Generation, Accounting Historians Journal, 49:2, 73-89.

• 2023 Academy of Accounting Historians Thomas J. Burns Biographical Award for Diane H. Roberts, 2021.  Gender Stereotyping in Public Accounting:  Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, Accounting History Review. 31:3, 315-334.

• Sole recipient of the 2020 Alfred R. Roberts Memorial Research Award, Academy of Accounting Historians.  (No relation to Alfred R. Roberts.)

• Diane H. Roberts, 2022. Follow in Footsteps:  The First CPAs of 1896-97 and Accounting Occupation Adoption of the Next Generation, Accounting Historians Journal, 49:2, 73-89.

• Diane H. Roberts, 2021.  Gender Stereotyping in Public Accounting:  Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, Accounting History Review. 31:3, 315-334.

• Diane H. Roberts, 2020. US Public Accounting Practice and Intergenerational Occupation Transfer from 1850-70, Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 47, No. 2, p. 21-33.

• Diane H. Roberts, 2020, Routledge Handbook of Accounting Ethics, Chapter 1, History of Professional Accounting Ethics. Edited by Eileen Z. Taylor and Paul F. Williams. Routledge., 1st Edition, pages 9-25. 

• Diane H. Roberts, 2018. An Analysis of Contributors, Institutions and Content of Accounting and the Public Interest 2001-2015, Accounting and the Public Interest, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1-43.