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Associate Professor of Economics Veronika Dolar, PhD, is an economist whose research spans labor, health, and sports economics, exploring how deeply structural inequalities shape opportunity—whether in the realm of Olympic performance or everyday life.

As a dedicated faculty member in Pace’s award-winning Economics department, she integrates real-world data and research into both her teaching and the mentoring of undergraduate students, empowering them to produce their own publishable work.

Economics and the Olympic Dream: A Quest to Make Data Human

Dolar’s recent work explored how income inequality affects national performance at the Winter Olympic Games. Her findings are both striking and sobering: nations with greater income inequality consistently send smaller delegations and win fewer medals, even after accounting for GDP, population, and institutional factors.

“While anyone can, in principle, qualify for the Olympics, the cost of elite training, coaching, equipment, and facilities make participation inaccessible to many,” she explained.

Using data from every Winter Games between 1992 and 2022, Dolar’s research treats Olympic success as an indicator of how effectively societies convert human capital into achievement. She has isolated the causal impact of inequality on performance, offering a fresh bridge between macroeconomic theory and sports analytics.

Through her research, presented at conferences from the Eastern Economic Association to the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research, Dolar has created interactive data visualization tools, accessible to policymakers and journalists, but also students at Pace.

Teaching Economics Through Real-world Stories

Dolar’s classroom reflects the same passion for connection between theory and practice and illuminates how economic structures shape opportunity in all areas of life.

Her economic inequality course, for example, integrates her own research, allowing students to work directly with the same datasets she uses in her publications. Students then become researchers in the process, replicating analyses using real data—from the World Bank to the Standardized World Income Inequality Database—and extend the work to areas such as education and healthcare.

“Economics isn’t just about money or markets,” she emphasized. “It’s about human potential and fairness—who gets to compete and succeed.”

Mentoring Through Research and Collaboration

Dolar also models the power of collaboration through student research in other ways.

An example is her partnership with undergraduate students, such as Fatima Abba ’26, to co-develop a manuscript inspired by Robert Reich’s Wealth & Poverty lecture series. What began as lecture summaries evolved into a project blending theory, data, and narrative to explore global inequality. Supported by the Dyson Student-Faculty Summer Research Award and Omicron Delta Epsilon, it will serve as a foundation for Dolar’s future textbook, Understanding Economic Inequality: An Introductory Guide Through Real-World Economics.

“It was transformative,” she reflected. “The students gained hands-on experience with data, writing, and policy analysis. It showed them that research can become real scholarship.”

In addition, in her fall 2025 introduction to macroeconomics class, an assignment was included, as part of the Archipelago Macroeconomics Project, that is a reflection of students shifting from being passive recipients of traditional economic knowledge to active producers whose analyses become accessible to more broader, public audiences.

Working in teams, and under Dolar’s guidance, they created websites and digital artifacts that analyzed core macroeconomic indicators for Caribbean island economies, comparing them to the US, New York State, and New York City. The result: Pace students with more academic agency, ownership, and collaboration in an otherwise large lecture course.

Reimagining How Economics Is Taught

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In recent years, Dolar has also taken on the challenge of modernizing and reshaping how economics is taught in classrooms at Pace and beyond, and with that, a chance to make economics engaging and relevant to a new generation of students.

To this end, she has co-authored the 7th editions of ECON MACRO and ECON MICRO (Cengage Learning, 2024), texts that connect theory to everyday examples—from the competition between Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs to the recent spike in egg prices.

“Economics, especially macroeconomics, has changed dramatically,” she said. “And our textbooks need to reflect that reality.”

In addition, Dolar has illuminated the continuing exclusion and underrepresentation of women within the economics profession (a trend, by the way, that Pace is bucking) through co-authoring another work, Missing Voices in Economics: Addressing the Gender Gap (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026). The book has been utilized in her Pace course on Economics of Gender, Race, and Class, integrating its findings into classroom discussion and analysis.

The Heart of Her Work: Making a Difference

Whether in her research, authorship of textbooks, or mentorship of students, Dolar’s passion is clear: helping others understand the world so they can make it better.

“What motivates me is seeing that ‘aha’ moment when students realize economics can explain the forces shaping their lives. That curiosity and empowerment are what make this work so rewarding,” she said.

Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University’s Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Team earned top honors at the New York Law School NIL and College Sports Negotiation Competition, held March 7–8, with one Pace Haub Law team winning the championship and the other finishing as runner-up.

The competition, which featured 14 teams, focused on the rapidly evolving legal landscape surrounding Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights in college athletics. Competing teams negotiated complex agreements involving athlete endorsements, sponsorship deals, and university partnerships, with judges drawn from attorneys and professionals working in the NIL and sports law fields.

Pace Haub Law was represented by two ADR teams. Rebecca Ferguson (3L) and Zach Ouladelhadjahmed (2L) emerged as competition champions, while Alexa Stack (2L) and Asly Abbas (2L) advanced to the final round and finished as runner-up. The teams were coached by alumna Andrea Garcia ‘24 and student coach Madeline M. Law (3L), who currently serves as Executive Productions Editor of Pace Law Review and Alternative Dispute Resolution Director for the Pace Law Advocacy Program.

“This was a challenging and unique competition,” said student coach Madeline Law (3L). “I was thrilled to assist the teams as a coach, which gave me a new perspective compared to my usual role as a competitor. I am incredibly proud of both teams for their preparation, professionalism, and ability to think creatively under pressure.”

Louis Fasulo, Professor of Trial Practice and Director of Advocacy Programs at Pace Haub Law, praised the students’ performance and the continued growth of the Law School’s advocacy and ADR programs. “Our students continue to demonstrate exceptional skill and professionalism in national advocacy competitions,” Professor Fasulo said. “This result reflects the depth of talent within our ADR team and the dedication of the students and coaches who work tirelessly to prepare. Having two Pace teams reach the final round speaks volumes about the strength of our program and the experiential learning opportunities we provide.”

The competition is designed to give law students hands-on experience negotiating agreements in the increasingly complex world of collegiate athletics and NIL regulations. For Pace Haub Law students, the victory highlights the continued success of the Law School’s Advocacy Program and ADR Team, which regularly compete and place in national competitions. With both teams advancing to the final round and securing first and second place, the event marked another significant achievement for Pace Haub Law’s advocacy students and coaches.

Students connected with 100+ employers—including EY, KPMG, FUJIFILM, and Northwell Health

Hundreds of Pace University students packed the Spring 2026 Job and Internship Career Fair on Wednesday —including many from Pace’s campus in Lower Manhattan— eager to connect with more than 100 top employers across a wide range of industries.

Students met face-to-face with recruiters, explored career paths, and expanded their professional networks during one of Career Services’ signature events of the semester.

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Employers in attendance included Americare, BDO USA, EY, FUJIFILM, ICON International, KPMG, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Northwell Health, New York Boulders, Office of the New York State Comptroller, Cisco among many others.

“Career fairs like this give students the chance to move beyond the classroom and engage directly with employers,” said Phyllis Mooney, assistant vice president of Career Services and Employer Relations. “Those conversations can open doors to internships, mentorship, and ultimately full-time careers.”

Career Services continues to deliver outcomes that position Pace as a national leader in career development. In 2025, over 9,000 internships, fieldwork/clinical placements and similar experiences were completed by Pace students. More than 14,000 employers posted 140,000+ jobs and internships for students through the University’s career platform.

In fact, the Class of 2024 achieved a 95% employment or continuing education rate within six months of graduation— including 93% of bachelor’s and 97% of master’s degree graduates—with the majority working in fields related to their studies.

“As a junior who transferred to Pace this spring from West Point, I came to the fair to learn more about the industries and companies here in New York,” said Matthew Adoghe ’27, a Business Economics major and member of the Pace football team, from Atlanta, Ga. “It was a great opportunity to get my name out there and connect with organizations I hadn’t originally considered.”

Pace graduates’ success is also reflected in salary outcomes: the average full-time salary for 2024 bachelor’s graduates was $75,098, and $87,153 for master’s graduates. Over the last five years, employment rates for Pace graduates have remained 10 percentage points higher than the national average, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers First Destination Survey. Additionally, Pace ranks in the top 9 percent of private U.S. colleges for return on tuition investment and in the top 11 percent of U.S. colleges with the highest-earning alumni, according to PayScale.

Pace’s Career Services also offers their employer partners a tailored, successful recruiting experience that introduces recruiters to talented students that represent the very best of Westchester, the New York City region, and the world—resulting in extraordinary outcomes. Top companies that employ Pace students include ABC News, Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Cisco, Citi, Deloitte, EY, IBM, KPMG, Live Nation Entertainment, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Montefiore, Morgan Stanley, NBCUniversal, PwC, UBS and Warner Bros Discovery.

“This is my first career fair, so I’m really excited to see the range of companies here,” said Elizabeth Odisote ’26, a graduate student in Public Accounting, who was among students from Pace’s Lower Manhattan campus who attended the job fair. “It’s helpful to talk directly with recruiters and get a better sense of what they’re looking for.”

About Pace University

Founded in 1906 and celebrating 120 years of preparing students for success in 2026, Pace University pairs real-life learning with strong academics to launch meaningful careers. With campuses in New York City and Westchester County, Pace serves 13,600 students across a range of bachelor, master, and doctoral programs through the College of Health Professions, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Elisabeth Haub School of Law, Lubin School of Business, Sands College of Performing Arts, School of Education, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems.