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Remembering Professor Huong (Ngo) Higgins, 1963-2020

One year ago, on Tuesday, October 13, 2020, Huong Ngo Higgins died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at the age of 56. Huong was a professor at the Business School of WPI. She is survived by her husband, Read; their children, Annie (student at WPI) and Conan; his mother, Cut Vo; and his brothers, Kuong and Pham Ngo.

Huong was born in Saigon, Vietnam on December 5, 1963 to Kiet Tuan Ngo and Cut Vo. She graduated from Saigon University with degrees in English and French in 1990. Huong and her family came to the United States in 1991. She met Read while she was attending Georgia State University, and they got together. were married in February 1995. In 1998, after obtaining his doctorate in accounting, they moved to Worcester, MA, where Huong began his 22-year career as a professor at WPI.

Huong was a dedicated business school teacher at WPI. His passion was making sure that WPI students learned and understood the fundamentals of business. She passed this passion on in her lessons on the financial fundamentals of the business to a generation of WPI students. In addition to business specializations, Huong’s courses were attended by a variety of engineers, sciences, and other specializations from WPI, who learned the core business principles of value for their lives and careers. With Associate Professor Fabienne Miller, she received the 2016 Bea Sanders / American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Innovation in Teaching Award for a project entitled “UBuild: A Simulation Bridging Financial and Managerial Accounting”. She was a strong supporter of financial education and believed that every student would benefit from financial literacy, ”Miller said.

His dedication to teaching included a deep compassion for his students. As one student recalled:

“I still remember her smile and how she used to explain difficult topics so easily to the whole class. Not only was she a great teacher, but she helped me when I was going through a difficult time. She would re-explain the topics to me on the days when I was really feeling down and made me excited about life again. Her dedication, her energy, her passion were so contagious, I became more passionate than ever for finance. (Quote from Legacy.com)

Professor Higgins has conducted research into global accounting practices, studying how institutions in different countries shape the behavior of market participants. She has published extensively in leading accounting journals and served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation. She was the co-principal investigator of a National Science Foundation award of $ 515,000 received in 2014 for research aimed at developing visual analysis tools to detect financial risk and fraud in streaming data in time. real. Chartered Accountant in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, she has also been a consultant to organizations.

Huong has actively participated in the life of WPI. She has served on most Business School committees, including tenure, undergraduate and graduate programs, including as committee chair. For WPI, she served on the Advisory and Student Life Committee as well as the WPI Board of Directors Committee on Student Affairs. She was often a member of the benefits committee. She also regularly writes recommendations to help students applying for graduate studies. His dedication to WPI and his Business School is greatly appreciated by his colleagues and students at WPI.

Huong was also devoted to her family. She was an amazing mother who took great care to prepare her children for the challenges of life. She was also a passionate gardener. She loved to sing and travel with her family. She also found the time to learn to juggle and loved to dance. Huong was a practicing Buddhist and was greatly comforted while meditating and going to the temple. She is deeply missed by her family, colleagues and WPI students, friends and everyone who knew her.


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