UMSL accounting student David Farnham displays the award he received for Best Undergraduate Student Contribution at the 2026 Accounting Information Systems Educator Association conference in June. (Photos courtesy of Johnna Murray)
What a year it has been for accounting student David Farnham, proving that transferring to the University of Missouri–St. Louis was the best move he could have made.
Last August, Farnham helped a team of peers from around the world win Beta Alpha Psi‘s Project Run-With-It competition at the organization’s national conference. He became the first UMSL representative to take the top prize in the annual contest that brings together students from different universities to form four-person consulting teams and develop solutions to real-world challenges facing nonprofit organizations.
In June, shortly after a three-month internship with regional accounting and tax firm Fick, Eggemeyer & Williamson, Farnham earned an award for Best Undergraduate Student Contribution at the 2026 Accounting Information Systems Educator Association conference in Denver after showcasing an AI-powered project he developed to help student organizations avoid scheduling conflicts with exams and major assignments. Johnna Murray, associate teaching professor in the Department of Accounting at the Ed G. Smith College of Business and faculty advisor for UMSL’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter, said the project’s impact could extend well beyond the conference, as she expects the work to be developed into an academic paper for publication in the AIS Educator Journal.
After returning from Denver, Farnham learned that he was one of two UMSL accounting students, along with Cing Niang, selected to receive a $15,000 scholarship from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. He was also recently elected president of UMSL’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter for the upcoming academic year.
For Farnham, the honors and accomplishments represented more than a remarkable stretch of success. They reinforced that taking a leap of faith and changing course academically was the right choice.
“UMSL has been such a difference maker for me,” said Farnham, who will graduate in December with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
David Farnham gives a presentation of his AI-powered scheduling tool at the AIS Educator Conference in June. The tool uses syllabi from accounting courses to create an easy-to-read calendar that will allow Beta Alpha Psi leaders to schedule meetings and professional events so they don’t overlap with the times students are under the most academic pressure.
Farnham began his academic journey in a much different direction. A 2019 graduate of Lindbergh High School, he spent two years at St. Louis Community College–Meramec on the A-Plus Program, then went to Webster University in fall 2021 to work toward a degree in sound engineering. However, as he neared completion of that degree, Farnham said he was plagued by the nagging feeling that he was meant for something else.
After a fair amount of soul searching, as well as meetings with career counselors, Farnham homed in on the accounting industry, even though he knew that switching majors at that point would lengthen the time it took to earn his bachelor’s degree. He wasn’t initially sure that he would be changing schools, but Farnham said that decision became pretty easy following continued conversations and online investigations.
“UMSL just kept popping up,” Farnham said. “I started reaching out to people, and a lot of them kept bringing up UMSL, talking about the strength of the program. So I took a look at it, and I knew it was going to be a good place for me to get a solid foundation in accounting.”
Farnham quickly realized that UMSL would help him build more than just a foundation. He enrolled in fall 2024, bringing with him a strong desire to succeed both inside and outside the classroom, and Farnham said that UMSL was happy to oblige.
“UMSL was right away providing that platform for me to pivot in my studies and pursue what I wanted to accomplish in my career,” he said. “The professors were super available to give me any additional help, and a big part of it for me was getting involved on campus. UMSL went above and beyond to reinforce that point, and there were so many opportunities through clubs to make connections with real-world business professionals, real accounting firms and corporations.”
During his first semester at UMSL, Farnham took a pair of accelerated, eight-week accounting courses – Fundamentals of Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting – taught by Murray. She said she was impressed by Farnham’s work ethic and curiosity, so she encouraged him to attend an upcoming meeting of Beta Alpha Psi, the honors organization for financial information students and professionals.
“Right off the bat, they had some really great experiences,” he said. “I could tell just how much of an opportunity it would be to continue going to those meetings, with the topics that they were covering and the opportunities to hear from professionals in the industry.”
Farnham became a Student Government Association representative for Beta Alpha Psi that first year, and Murray later suggested that he become the group’s vice president of competitions. It was in that role that Farnham came up with the idea of developing an AI-powered scheduling tool as a project for UMSL’s chapter to present at Beta Alpha Psi’s national mid-year meeting, held in March in Cincinnati.
David Farnham (in red shirt) and fellow other UMSL Beta Alpha Psi officers (from left) Michael Davis, Linda Lam, Nayehsa Sullivan and Cheyenne Kemp and faculty advisor Johnna Murray attended Beta Alpha Psi’s 2025 Annual Meeting last August in San Antonio.
The seed for the idea was born out of the difficulty for so many of the organization’s officers and other members to attend events due to academic conflicts. Farnham said there was an all-too-common theme of people lamenting a big test or significant assignment that kept them from being able to participate. At the same time, Farnham said he was looking for a way to improve his AI skills, and this project provided an opportunity to do that.
Farnham collected syllabi from accounting courses and used AI to identify key dates such as exams and major project deadlines. He then turned that information into an easy-to-read calendar that showed when students were likely to be the busiest.
“Getting to work on that was a great way to learn about Power BI, and some of these data structuring or data management tools,” he said. “It was at a very, very small scale. We are not talking about huge tables or anything, but it was a great way to kind of get my feet wet.”
It also provided a great way for Beta Alpha Psi leaders to schedule meetings and professional events so they don’t overlap with the times students are under the most academic pressure, and it could eventually be adapted for other student organizations as well. In fact, Murray said there were people at the AIS Educator Conference who expressed interest in utilizing Farnham’s solution for their groups.
“When David first showed us what he had been working on and I realized what it was, I recognized right away that this was something different,” Murray said. “I just could not believe the amount of time and effort that he put into it.”
Farnham will get another chance to present his work in early August, when he will travel to Las Vegas with Murray to attend AAA Global Connect, the annual conference for the American Accounting Association. That comes on the heels of the Beta Alpha Psi national convention in late July, the first event for Farnham in his new role as UMSL chapter president.
With each achievement, Farnham has become more certain that UMSL is where he was meant to be. Thanks in large part to the PCAOB scholarship, Farnham’s UMSL journey will continue as he plans to pursue a master’s degree in accounting.
“This educational experience at UMSL has really helped me to grow in a lot of ways that I would have never been able to predict,” said Farnham, who has an internship with UHY lined up for spring 2026. “It’s been great. It really has, and it has taken on a life of its own. But that’s all you could hope for.”
