Patrick Badolato
Associate Professor of Instruction
Department: Accounting
Research Areas: Auditing, Corporate Governance, Financial Reporting

Dr. Patrick Badolato teaches in the McCombs Executive, Full-time, Evening, Dallas, and Houston MBA Programs as well as the MPA, MSF, and MSTC graduate programs.
Patrick’s teaching expertise focuses on Financial Statement Analysis, a case-based class that moves away from generic ratios and metrics and towards critical thinking in an effort to use an array of financial information to understand the past and form well-motivated predictions for the future; Financial Accounting, a class that emphasizes the importance of accounting's thoughtful and logical representation of business events; and Accounting Concepts and Research, a class that offers a deep dive into the business reasons and economic motivations behind accounting standards.
Outside of McCombs, Patrick’s analyses of Amazon, Whole Foods, Dropbox, Casper and commentaries on taxes have received media mentions and been noted in podcast discussions. Patrick served as a consultant and accounting subject matter expert for Harvard Business Publishing during 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018, including the development of the Harvard’s HBX CORe program in Financial Accounting (now a part of HBS Online) and served in a similar capacity for Wall Street Prep in 2020.
Patrick earned BS degrees in Accounting and Economics from Villanova University and a PhD in Accounting from Duke University in 2010. Prior to pursuing his PhD, Patrick worked in the assurance and tax practices for Ernst and Young in Philadelphia, PA where he earned his CPA license.
Patrick’s research interests center around corporate governance, financial reporting choices and the use of financial information. Patrick’s research has been published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics.
Patrick’s attraction to education stems from the unique opportunity to constantly learn from and give back to the greater academic community, his colleagues, and his students.
ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP & AWARDS
2004 |
Certified Public Accountant: Pennsylvania
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2009 |
American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium Fellow
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1999 |
Villanova University's Presidential Scholarship
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2021 |
Texas MBA at Houston Outstanding Professor Award
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2020 |
Texas MS in Finance Faculty of the Year
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2020 |
Poets and Quants Top 40 MBA Professors under 40
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Publications
Patrick Badolato, Dain Donelson, and Matthew Ege. 2014. Audit Committee Financial Expertise and Earnings Management: The Role of Status. Journal of Accounting and Economics 58(2/3), 208-230.