Mark J. Nigrini, PhD

Mark J. Nigrini is on the Business & Economics faculty at West Virginia University. For many years, Nigrini’s research passion has been Benford’s Law. There are predictable patterns to the digits in lists of numbers in that the smaller digits (1s, 2s, and 3s) are expected to occur more often in scientific and financial data. Benford’s Law has proved valuable to auditors in their quest to uncover fraud in corporate data. His current research deals with advanced work on Benford’s Law, analytics in forensic accounting, and AI to improve productivity for financial and forensic accountants.

Nigrini is the author of Forensic Analytics (Wiley, 2020), which describes analytics used to detect fraud, errors, estimates, and biases in financial data, and Benford's Law (Wiley, 2012). In 2014, Nigrini authored an article in the Journal of Accountancy, co-authored with Nathan Mueller, a fraudster incarcerated in a federal prison. That article won the Lawler Award for the 2014 best article in the Journal of Accountancy. His work has been featured in The Financial Times, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has published papers on Benford’s Law in academic journals and professional publications. These journals include the highly regarded Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance and Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory.

Nigrini published the lead article in the new premier forensic accounting journal, the Journal of Forensic Accounting Research. His radio interviews have included the BBC in London and NPR in the United States. His television interviews have included an interview on a fraud saga for the Evil Twins series for the Investigation Discovery Channel. He is a regular presenter at the ACFE’s Global Conferences. He regularly presents professional seminars for accountants and auditors in the U.S. and abroad, with recent appearances in Brazil, Germany, Canada, and Mexico.