Accounting doctoral candidate Megan Seymore, CPA, has been awarded the $10,000 Michael J. Barrett Doctoral Dissertation Grant to study how visualizations of big data and differing data sources influence decision- making in internal audits. The grant comes from the Institute of Internal Auditors' Internal Audit Foundation.

The award will help fund Seymore's doctoral research, examining the way data analytics and different sources for information can alter business judgments. Internal audit reports have traditionally been text-heavy documents. However, auditors are increasingly incorporating visuals to help explain results from large data sets.