Axel Abrica (C’25) grew up in a small town with a lot of heart.
The predominantly Hispanic community hosted a Christmas parade every year, complete with cheerleaders and a public bus wrapped in lights; a mid-winter fiesta; and farmers markets selling the region’s varied crops. In high school, Abrica and his classmates stopped at the local donut shop every day after class.
“Everybody knew each other,” Abrica said. “We made the most of what we had.”
At the same time, his hometown is one of the most polluted counties in the country.
Growing up in a low-income community, Abrica experienced his town’s poverty and was aware of the asthma attacks around him. He wanted to help his neighbors and his parents, three siblings and grandmother.
Years later, as he prepares to graduate from Georgetown and begin a job at one of DC’s top consulting firms, he still wants to help. And he found an unlikely way to do so: math.
Axel Abrica (C’25) majored in economics in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Clicking with Economics
Abrica was always good with numbers — “that’s the one thing academically I could do all day,” he said.
His high school didn’t offer Calculus II, so he taught it to himself and passed the AP exam.
Abrica knew he wanted to study math in college, and he thought Georgetown would offer him a way to use it to help people. He just had to figure out how.
“I wanted to find a way to use math in a way that’s more impactful to people instead of solving proofs all day,” he said.
His first year, he found an opportunity. As the director of socioeconomic advocacy for Georgetown’s student government, he began advocating for students who would be homeless without summer housing. He tallied the numbers and presented them to Georgetown’s administration. He then worked with Student Affairs and other university departments and students to implement the university’s ongoing Bridge Housing Program, which provides housing support during winter and summer breaks.
His junior year, he helped fellow Hoyas tackle microeconomics as a teaching assistant, including serving as a head TA, a role previously only filled by graduate students.
“When I was taking Principles in Micro, I was in shambles,” Abrica said. “As a first-generation student, that was rough. So I wanted to provide [help] for other students like me.”
Later that same year, he took Topics, Competition and Regulation with Professor Marius Schwartz, and something clicked. He found the field of antitrust could blend his passion for economics and impact.
“I think it was a combination of structural factors of me growing up in poverty and seeing how unfairly people can be treated,” he said. “Coming to Georgetown, I saw how numbers and real theories can help alleviate that.”
Schwartz, a first-generation college graduate who previously served as chief economist for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, saw how hard Abrica worked and how hard he worked to help others.
“He’s been one of the most gratifying students I’ve had in 40 years at Georgetown,” he said. “He would occasionally have to go back to help [his family], and how well he did despite that is even more impressive.”
Working in the Fields
Abrica in 2020 on a farm in California. He began working at a fruit packaging plant at age 13.
Abrica got his first job at age 13. He made minimum wage packaging watermelons at a packaging plant.
In 110-degree heat, he’d stand under a canopy with fans blowing. A fellow worker would throw him a watermelon that he’d place in a box. Over and over again until 60 filled the case.
“I really started to dislike watermelon,” he said.
Later, he got a job with his uncle walking through lines of carrots, cabbage and alfalfa and unloading and fixing sprinkler systems. He worked in the fields every summer through high school.
“I experienced what it feels like to be like on the very, very low end of the spectrum,” he said. “I’ve also experienced seeing that from the outside, whether by working with the congressman or hearing people’s stories very intentionally.”
The summer after his first year at Georgetown, Abrica interned with his local member of Congress, learning more about the issues local constituents cared about. The next summer, he interned with the Latino Community Foundation, where he advocated on behalf of local renters.
Most recently, he started working with the Imperial Valley Equity and Justice Coalition, a nonprofit that works to reduce social and health inequities in his hometown county. In the coalition, he got a front-row seat to a pressing issue in his community.
Abrica won a 2025 Lena Landegger Community Service Award, which honors undergraduates for their commitment to community service.
In 2023, one of the largest deposits of lithium, a metal used to make batteries in everything from electric vehicles to smartphones, was discovered 40 minutes from Abrica’s hometown in the Salton Sea. His coalition wanted to ensure that as companies invest in lithium mining, they invest in the community too — particularly its environmental impact in a region already grappling with climate change and air pollution.
In Professor Schwartz’s course at Georgetown, Abrica began to study the economic theories behind antitrust that keep corporations accountable. The course brought to life his lived experiences and those of his community members.
“Now that I’m heading into that line of work, I feel like I’ll actually be helping people by running the data and running different regressions and models to keep those corporations accountable.”
Before he starts as an analyst with Compass Lexecon, an economic consulting firm in DC, right after graduation, Abrica is returning to his hometown to work for two months for the nonprofit.
“I just want to leave an impact on my community,” he said, noting he wants to continue to help from afar while also prioritizing supporting his family.
A New Start
Abrica graduated from the College of Arts & Sciences on May 17. Photo by Elman Studio.
The week before graduation, Abrica’s family flew in from California to see him graduate. They attended a breakfast for economics students and watched him speak at a multicultural celebration.
Abrica said before they came, he had a conversation with his dad, who had worked as a garbage collector throughout his upbringing.
“’He was like, ‘I’m excited to see you walk across because it’s going to make me feel like I’ve been a good father, that I’ve at least done something right,’” he said.
“If I’m graduating from one of the top 25 universities in the country, for him, that’s a big deal, and I’m happy that my siblings are following suit as well.”
After graduation, on a bright and sunny Saturday, Abrica and his parents stood on Copley Lawn. Both their eyes welled up.
His dad told him this won’t be the last time he makes him proud.
“Keep finding moments to make me proud,” his dad told Abrica in Spanish.
For Abrica, he feels a sense of peace. He’s ready to find an apartment and start his new job.
“Twenty-two years of my life, that work is done,” he said. “I did it successfully. I have a job now. I tend not to reminisce too much about the past, but I’m just really excited about where Georgetown has led me.
