Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, and teaches financial accounting in the MBA for professionals program. His research focuses on financial reporting quality and the impact of accounting in debt and equity market settings. Dr. Akins earned his PhD in accounting from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this past May after defending his dissertation studying the relationship between reporting quality and uncertainty about credit risk, captured by disagreement between the rating agencies. He received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds master’s degrees in business administration from Rice University and in biblical interpretation from Lubbock Christian University.