Ph.D. student receives KPMG accounting scholarship

BLACKSBURG, Va., Nov. 17, 2003 – Lemuria D. Carter of Richmond, a Ph.D. student in accounting and information systems at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, has received a KPMG Accounting Doctoral Scholarship.

The $10,000 annual award, renewable for up to five years, is sponsored by the KPMG Foundation, which is a partner in the Ph.D. Project. The latter, an alliance of corporations, higher education institutions and professional associations, seeks to increase faculty diversity in business schools by attracting African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans to business doctoral programs and providing them support during their studies.

Carter received an M.S. in accounting and information systems from Virginia Tech and a B.S. in information systems and decision sciences from Virginia State University. In her second year of doctoral studies, she has co-authored and presented conference papers and submitted grant proposals to IBM and the National Science Foundation on various areas of electronic government, her research interest. She also serves on the college's Diversity Committee.

A recipient of several other scholarships and fellowships, Carter says the KPMG scholarship will also enable her to attend the Ph.D. Project annual conference, which is "an excellent opportunity to network with professors and other doctoral students."

Virginia Tech's nationally ranked Pamplin College of Business offers undergraduate and graduate programs in accounting and information systems, business information technology, economics, finance, hospitality and tourism management, management, and marketing. The college emphasizes the development of leadership skills and ethical (contactname, contactphone, contactemail, headline, leadsentence, morepara, releasedate, storysource, releasenumber, college, itemnumber, releaseyear) VALUES and the integration of technology in the academic curriculum, and prepares students for global business challenges through faculty-led study abroad programs. The college has research centers that focus on business leadership, electronic commerce, energy modeling, and wireless telecommunications. The college is committed to serving business and society through the expertise of its faculty, alumni, and students.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top 30 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.