Cost Accounting: With Integrated Data Analytics

KAREN CONGO FARMER, MA, CPA, CA (CANADA)
Raised on a farm in southwestern Ontario, Canada, I learned from an early age the value of hospitality, music, seasons, finishing a job, and telling a good story.
McMaster University introduced me to a professor who inspired a love of accounting. She was authentic and warm—a role model for my future teaching. As an auditor at Ernst & Young, I earned my CPA designation and experienced business and networking firsthand. Next, I held a dual role at the beautiful Western University: Accountant by day in Financial Services, and accounting lecturer in the evening. Soon enough, I became a full-time lecturer. In addition, a 10+ year instructor role with CPA Ontario, preparing students for their professional exams, was pivotal to my development.

AMY J. FREDIN, PHD, CPA, CIA
My story begins in a small town in western Minnesota, where I grew up with music and sports, camping and boating, family time and fierce friendships. I studied music and accounting at the College of St. Benedict and from there worked in public accounting and obtained my CPA. I then went back to school for my MBA at St. Cloud State University. While completing that degree, I started teaching in the accounting program at Alexandria Technical College. It was there that my love for teaching began.
Five years later, my story moves to Nebraska, where I pursued a PhD in accounting at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln (go Big Red!). After I completed that degree, St. Cloud State invited me back, this time to join the Accounting Department as a faculty member. In my more than a dozen years so far at SCSU, I have enjoyed teaching, researching, working with students and colleagues, leading case discussions in executive training programs, and connecting with employers in the community.