Stephen Ryan is an expert in financial accounting and reporting under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), with specific expertise in financial reporting by financial institutions and for financial instruments.
As an expert witness, Professor Ryan has authored multiple expert reports and testified both in numerous depositions and at trial, with experience that includes state and federal courts. He has served as an accounting expert on behalf of firms and individuals in informal inquiries by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Office of the New York State Attorney General.
Professor Ryan has been actively involved in financial accounting standards setting. He served on the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council, the advisory body for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). He also served for six years on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Financial Advisory Roundtable.
In his research, Professor Ryan analyzes the influence of financial accounting standards and disclosures on bank operations and financial market stability. He has examined how accounting standards and regulations such as the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) model and securitization rules affect bank lending, capital management, and risk management. In addition, he has addressed how regulatory oversight and auditing can shape the quality of financial reporting.
Honored with several best-paper awards, Professor Ryan has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed journals, including The Accounting Review, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, and Management Science. Professor Ryan is also the author of a reference book, Financial Instruments and Institutions: Accounting and Disclosure Rules, (John Wiley & Sons), now in its second edition. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Accounting and Economics and the Review of Accounting Studies.
Since 1990, Professor Ryan has taught courses at NYU Stern, where he has been recognized for innovation in teaching. He teaches two unique financial accounting and analysis courses developed at Stern: “Analysis of Financial Institutions and Financial Instruments” for M.B.A. students and “Accounting for Financial Instruments” for master’s accounting students. He also teaches courses on banking and debt contracting in the Ph.D. program.
Before joining NYU Stern, Professor Ryan served for more than a decade on the faculty at the Yale School of Management. He previously worked as a consultant at Bain & Company.