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Poets&Quants has released its annual list of the , and ���ϲ�����’s , is among those honored.

Poets&Quants, a leading publication focused on undergraduate business education, selects just 50 professors each year from more than 1,000 nominations submitted by students, alumni, colleagues and school leaders around the world. Professors are chosen for their impact on students, contributions to their disciplines and distinctive approaches to teaching and mentoring.

For Akben, who joined the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business in 2022, the recognition reflects both what happens in his classroom and the work he leads across campus as ���ϲ�����’s director of artificial intelligence integration.

“Mustafa represents the future of business education at ���ϲ�����,” said Haya Ajjan, dean of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. “He advances AI research, helps our community use these tools thoughtfully and ethically, and creates learning experiences that build confident, compassionate leaders. This recognition reflects what our students already know when they step into his classroom.”

Akben teaches Principles of Management and Organizational Behavior and Human Resources for Competitive Advantage, courses that introduce students to foundational management concepts and the realities of leading people at work.

His classes are designed to feel more like labs than lectures. Students may find themselves working through an escape-room style challenge to practice teamwork, building and selling cardboard “houses” to see how organizations coordinate across roles, or pitching final projects to local leaders in a Shark Tank style event.

“My classroom is a place where students experiment, reflect and grow,” Akben said. “There is no textbook for life or work. You must improvise and use critical and creative thinking to find an answer, and watching students grow into that mindset is one of the greatest joys of teaching.”

Akben’s research focuses on generative AI, managerial cognition and organizational psychology. He studies how AI tools influence creativity, proactive behavior and decision making at work and how organizations can design human and AI partnerships that bring out the best in both.

Beyond his teaching and scholarship, Akben serves as ���ϲ�����’s director of artificial intelligence integration, helping academic and administrative units develop responsible AI strategies and hands-on learning experiences for students.

Before entering academia, Akben worked as a general manager in Turkey and completed mandatory military service.

“Those experiences made it impossible for me to treat leadership as abstract theory,” Akben said. “Leadership is never just about performance metrics. It is about people’s lives, and that realization is what guides my research and my teaching today.”

He went on to earn an M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Temple University. His work on social networks and information sharing has earned recognition including a Best Paper Award from the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management. He is also a two-time award recipient in the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s Machine Learning Competition for his AI-based workplace solutions.

“I am grateful for the colleagues, mentors and students who have shaped my journey, and for my family, who believed in me not just as a professor but as a person,” he said. “This honor belongs to all of us who care about making leadership and work better for the future.”