Bala Balachandran began his teaching career in 1960 while a graduate student at Annamalai University, India. In 1967 he moved to the University of Dayton and in 1971, to Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, where he taught management courses while working on his doctorate. In 1973 he joined the Kellogg School of Management faculty. He was Chairman of the Department of Accounting Information and Management from 1979 - 1983. In 1984 he was appointed Professor of Accounting Information and Management and was Director of the Accounting Research Center from 1985-2006.

Professor Balachandran's teaching interests include managerial accounting, auditing, management information systems, and mathematical programming. He is one of three Kellogg faculty members who started the Information Resource Management Program (IRM) at Northwestern in 1974. He has authored more than 55 research articles and is currently writing a managerial accounting textbook with emphasis on cost management in an automated manufacturing environment. He is department editor in accounting for Management Science, associate editor for The Accounting Review and on the editorial boards of Contemporary Accounting Research, and the Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance.

Professor Balachandran's research deals with performance evaluation, cost management, audit planning, allocation models, and forecasting. His recent work includes auditors' legal liability and game theoretic cost allocation models with transfer pricing. His work has earned numerous scholastic honors, awards, and fellowships, and he serves as a consultant to senior management in industry, as well as to the U.S. Air Force, in the areas of accounting, forecasting, and strategic decision support systems. He has provided executive education for various companies and the government and is the program director for "Managing Cost Information for Effective Strategic Decisions," a three-day program conducted at the James L. Allen Center each year during the spring and fall.

Performance evaluation, cost management, audit planning, allocation models

• PhD, 1973, Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University
• MS, 1963, Applied Statistics, Annamalai University
• MA, 1961, Mathematics, Statistics, Annamalai University
• BS, 1959, Mathematics, Statistics, Annamalai University

• Director, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1985-present
• J.L. Kellogg Distinguished Professor in Accounting, Information, and Management, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1984-present
• Professor of Accounting, Information Systems and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1979-1979
• Chairman and Professor of Accounting, Information Systems and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1979-1983
• Associate Professor of Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 1973-1976
• Assistant Professor, University of Dayton, 1971-1973
• Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Dayton, 1970-1971
• Instructor, Industrial Engineering, University of Dayton, 1969-1970
• Assistant Professor of Statistics/Mathematics, Department of Statistics, Annamalia University, 1960-1967

• Kellogg Alumni Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management, 1997
• Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management, 1996-1997

Managerial accounting, auditing, management information systems, mathematical programs