Shyam Sunder begin his term as the 2006-07 president of the American Accounting Association this week.

Sunder, the James L. Frank Professor of Accounting, Economics and Finance at the Yale School of Management, delivered his presidential address, "Imagined Worlds of Accounting," in Washington at the AAA 2006 Annual Meeting.

"Accounting scholarship examines the way things were and are, and how they might be," Sunder said. "The theme of the 2007 AAA meeting will be to celebrate and explore the power of accounting in both these domains."

Professor Sunder's affiliation with the AAA has spanned more than three decades. He is a leading accounting theorist and his research contributions have touched on a number of areas over the years. Sunder pioneered the use of experimental methods in financial economics and macroeconomics and the use of programmed traders, known as zero-intelligence traders, to explore the structural properties of markets. He also developed CapLab, computer software that is used to teach financial decision-making and has been adopted by many universities.

In addition to his teaching and research at Yale, Sunder served as director of the Yale Center for Corporate Governance and Performance during its first year of activity in 2005.

Sunder, a native of India, is committed to improving management education in India and frequently lectures to graduate students and faculty at the Indian Institutes of Management and other universities.

Before joining Yale in 1999, Sunder taught at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Chicago and held visiting professorships around the globe. The AAA's 8,000 members work to promote scholarly interchange in accounting.

Previously on WebCPA:

AICPA, AAA to Research Non-Financial Measures (June 16, 2006)