Mark J. Nigrini

Mark J. Nigrini, Ph.D. is an associate professor at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. His research passion is Benford’s Law which gives us the expected patterns of the digits in tabulated data. According to Benford’s Law the lower digits (1s, 2s, and 3s) are expected to occur far more frequently as the first digits of the numbers in scientific and financial data than are the higher digits (7s, 8s, and 9s). Benford’s Law has shown itself to be valuable to auditors in their quest to uncover fraud in corporate data. His current research addresses advanced theoretical work on Benford’s Law, CFO fraud, and the use of analytics in auditing and forensic accounting. Mark has published papers on forensic analytics in academic journals and professional publications. These journals include the highly regarded Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance and Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory. He published the lead article on the tendency of fraudsters to use round numbers in the first issue of the newly created forensic accounting journal, the Journal of Forensic Accounting Research. In 2014 Mark published an article in the Journal of Accountancy that was co-authored with Nathan Mueller who at the time was incarcerated in a federal prison. Their article subsequently won the Lawler award for the best article in the Journal of Accountancy in 2014. An article published in Managerial Auditing Journal in 2019 has been very well-received by forensic accountants. That study described the characteristics of the dollar amounts used in financial statement, bribery, and asset misappropriation fraud schemes. The number patterns give external auditors and forensic accountants some tangible regularities that can be used in rules-based, proactive fraud detection tests. His work has been featured in The Financial Times, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. His radio interviews have included the BBC in London, and NPR in the United States. His television interviews have included an interview for the Evil Twins series for the Investigation Discovery Channel. He is a regular presenter at the ACFE’s Global Conferences. He also regularly presents workshops for accountants and auditors in the U.S and abroad with recent presentations in Panama, Bahrain and Italy. In his spare time, he enjoys overseas travelling, playing darts, listening to music, watching British television series and walking 10,000 steps per day. His favorite foods are Indian curry and Vietnamese dishes. He enjoys giving presentations on forensic accounting, but he doesn’t particularly like to get up early in the morning.