Professor Sarah J. Williams's Research cited by American Accounting Association Committee

CARLISLE, PA—The scholarship of Professor Sarah J. Williams was cited by the American Accounting Association Auditing Section’s Auditing Standards Committee in a comment letter it submitted to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) on the audit watchdog’s strategic priorities.

In March 2026, PCAOB requested public comment on its proposed 2026–2030 strategic plan. In response, the Auditing Standards Committee of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association submitted a comment letter in which it cited Williams’s article “The Alchemy of Effective Auditor Regulation.”

It referenced Williams’s observation in “Alchemy” that the agency uses an “open-arms admission policy” for registering accounting firms, which registration allows such firms to audit public companies. The letter cited her observation as the basis for its recommendation that the PCAOB adopt rules to prohibit audit firms from using their PCAOB registration status when marketing their services to clients or the public.

Professor Sarah J. Williams is a professor of law at Penn State Dickinson Law. Her research focuses on investor protection in the area of federal securities regulation. Prior to joining Penn State Dickinson Law, Professor Williams practiced law as a securities regulator. She was deputy director at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and Associate General Counsel at NASD (now FINRA). She spent several years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, serving as staff attorney and branch chief in its Division of Enforcement, then as counsel to SEC Commissioner Isaac C. Hunt, Jr. Professor Williams began her legal career as an associate attorney at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C.