Richard (Dick) Riley ’84 was the recipient of the 2009 Innovation in Accounting Education Award from The American Accounting Association (AAA) for his work on forensic accounting and fraud examination.

The AAA award, which is sponsored by the Ernst & Young Foundation, was presented to Riley during the Associations’ annual meeting held in New York Aug. 5.

Riley is currently a Louis F. Tanner Distinguished Professor of Public Accounting at West Virginia University and the 2008 Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Educator of the Year. He is the director of research for the Institute for Fraud Prevention and has taught at WVU since 1998.

Riley was instrumental in bringing the forensic accounting and fraud investigation graduate program to WVU in 2004.

He also was part of a group that created national curriculum guidelines for such programs under a grant from the National Institute of Justice. He also implemented an educational program for the IRS.

The annual Innovation in Accounting Education Award is intended to encourage innovation and improvement in accounting education, and submissions are judged by their innovation, demonstrated educational benefits and adaptability by other academic institutions or to other situations.