Professor McDermott teaches financial reporting and sustainability courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With a teaching philosophy centered on kindness, she strives to foster a warm classroom environment and cares deeply about helping students develop into compassionate, emotionally intelligent leaders. Her research has appeared in Management Science and focuses on the quality of accounting information and its role in decision-making.

Before joining the McIntire School, Professor McDermott was a faculty member at Georgetown University, where she taught financial reporting courses in the undergraduate, evening MBA, and full-time MBA programs. Prior to her doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina, Professor McDermott worked as a Senior Auditor for PwC in Chicago. She is a registered CPA in Illinois and a recipient of the Elijah Watt Sells Award.