Researcher develops software for federal agencies

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of the Treasury are using crime-fighting software developed by a researcher in the SIUC College of Business and Administration.

The treasury department recently asked Jake M. Rose, associate professor in the School of Accountancy, to create software that detects fraud in financial and tax data. Rose met the challenge by designing software that identifies irregularities in the distribution of digits in large sets of data.

"I designed the software to allow agents with very little technology training to take advantage of the information available in large financial datasets," Rose said. He also provided the agency with custom training materials and practice cases.

Federal officials were so impressed they recently announced Rose's software will also be used for training and field use by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies.

"It is extremely exciting that the Department of Treasury and other federal agencies will be employing my fraud detection software," said Rose. "Digital fraud detection techniques can greatly increase the efficiency of field investigations, and the software was specifically designed to detect patterns indicative of financial and tax fraud. I am very hopeful that the software will allow federal law enforcement agents to prevent and detect financial and tax fraud more quickly and effectively."

Rose is the winner of the 2007 College of Business and Administration Research Excellence Award. He is a three-degree graduate of Texas A& M University, earning a bachelor's degree in accounting, a master's degree in accounting and a doctorate in accounting information systems.

- Sun Min