Accounting professor named 2026 UF Research Foundation Professor

Jennifer Wu Tucker, J. Michael Cook and Deloitte Professor at the Warrington College of Business and Fisher School of Accounting, was recognized among 33 University of Florida professors as a 2026 UF Research Foundation (UFRF) Professor. 

This recognition is awarded to faculty for advancing discovery, creativity and innovation in research across the university. Since 1997, this program has honored more than a thousand researchers who have shaped their field internationally. Honorees are selected based on research accomplishments, external funding, publications, intellectual property development and additional awards. 

“I feel incredibly honored for this recognition and deeply grateful for the support received,” Tucker said. “I credit my growth and accomplishments to the resources, support and vibrant academic environment at the Fisher School of Accounting within Warrington College of Business in the University of Florida.”

Tucker has been a professor at Warrington since 2004; this is her second recognition as a UFRF Professor.  She has also received the J. Michael Cook Teaching Award in 2017, the Jack Wessel Research Excellence Award in 2009 and the Exceptional Performance Award for Post-Tenure Review in 2024. In addition, she has received Best Paper Award from the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand and the Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance.

Tucker’s research focuses on financial reporting, information disclosure and emerging technologies, specifically with artificial intelligence and textual analysis. She currently has 35 academic publications, including 20 top-tier publications. She has presented at about 60  conferences or invited seminars in the past five years. She has thousands of citations, including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Harvard Business Review.

Her most recent publication, “Can generative AI help identify peer firms?” evaluated how well generative AI can identify product market competitors. The study finds that AI-generated peers have a high overlap with the peers identified by human experts. AI-generated peers co-move with the focal firm in stock markets more than the peers generated by existing peer identification systems. AI-generated peers also exhibit higher homogeneity among themselves than those generated from existing systems. The findings suggested that, especially for large firms, generative AI can identify peer firms reasonably well. This was one of the first accounting publications examining generative AI’s potential role in capital markets. 

Currently, Tucker serves as the senior editor for Accounting Horizons, one of three association-wide academic journals published by the American Accounting Association. She has also served as an editor for Contemporary Accounting Research, a top-tier accounting journal, for six years.