National Honor Provides New Opportunities for Two School of Economics Students
An early interest in economics and participation in the Drexel Economics Society student organization turned out to be good preparation for Mustafa Eren ’27 and Niyam Acharya ’26. They were named 2026-27 NABE Scholars by the NABE Foundation, the charitable arm of the National Association for Business Economics.
Eren, a fourth-year economics student, will be the only currently enrolled undergraduate student in the 2026-27 cohort of NABE Scholars; most scholars are either enrolled in master’s or doctoral studies or are working as early-career economic researchers. Acharya, a recent economics and data science graduate, will participate in NABE Scholar activities and courses as he pursues a post-graduation role in data engineering.
As NABE Scholars, Eren and Acharya will receive a year’s membership in NABE, which includes professional-development courses toward earning the Certified Business Economist credential, and will attend seminars and workshops with leading economists and researchers. Both attended NABE’s national Policy Conference in Washington DC and served as volunteers for a workshop in Philadelphia hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
Eren became interested in economics during high school through mainstream economics texts like “Capital in the 21st Century” and “Why Nations Fail.” After initially pursuing a triple major in economics, computer science and politics, he narrowed his focus to economics and made an initial foray into economic research through the Pennoni Honors College’s STAR Scholar program, studying how regulators evaluate nonprofit mergers with Professor of Economics Teresa Harrison, PhD.
“It was mostly economics theory and its applications that really interested me, like the dynamics of how particular decisions that we take, either as individuals or as a society, interact with each other,” he says, adding that this confluence of theory, behavior and policy has spurred his interest in attending law school after graduation.
He’s built on that initial curiosity in a number of ways: finishing first in the 2023 Philly Hackathon with a team of engineering and data science students; serving as financial markets lead for Drexel’s College Fed Challenge team; and conducting research under Professor of Economics Bang Jeon, PhD, and Professor of Politics Jose Tapia, PhD.
Having already attended two NABE events, Eren’s NABE scholarship offers him the chance to further deepen his engagement with the field, namely through meeting economists working in industry with major companies like Amazon. “I want to learn from their experience, because they’re actually applying economics, economic theory and analysis in their own field,” he says.
Acharya, who graduated from Drexel after completing a dual-degree program offered in collaboration with the School of Computer and Information Sciences, completed an AWS certificate in data engineering during his final term of undergraduate studies. He sees his NABE scholarship as an opportunity to additional technical skills in preparation for a career as a data engineer.
Before coming to Drexel as an international student from Nepal, Acharya had received early exposure to economics through A-level exams during high school. “I had already studied price elasticity of demand, the supply chain and other fundamentals, and that really got me interested in learning more,” he says.
His early encounters with NABE put him into contact with leaders and policy experts from across industry and government. Meeting Peter McCrory, head economist for Anthropic, at NABE’s 2026 Policy Conference certainly made an impression on him.
“He gave a small seminar and stuck around to talk afterward,” he says. “It’s amazing to see how humble and down-to-earth these amazing people are, and how helpful and welcoming they are toward our ideas.”
Beyond making networking opportunities, both Eren and Acharya are looking to gain technical skills through CBE courses, including time-series econometrics using Stata and Python. “These courses that are taught by experts in the field are going to show me new, state-of-the-art methods,” Eren says.
“For data scientists, there’s never enough training, so being able to take a course on applied machine learning, which is one of the CBE offerings, will be amazing,” Acharya says.
This honor builds on an earlier milestone for LeBow and the School of Economics, after Akhmad Dyussembayev, BS economics ’28, was named a 2025-26 NABE Scholar. Eren notes that they worked together on the College Fed Challenge in 2025, both he and Acharya hope to follow in his footsteps and boost their skills as he has.
“I’m really looking forward to the CBE courses and getting some projects and additional experience under my belt,” Acharya says.
