Each week during the academic year, the Academic Support Staff will recognize a student-athlete as the Academic All-Star of the Week. This award is a way to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of student-athletes in the classroom. This recognition may also include experiential learning such as unique internships and undergraduate research.
View the 2012-13 Academic All-Star of the Week HonoreesApril 28 • Claire Smith (Jr. • Women's Track & Field)Claire Smith is a junior on the women’s track and field team majoring in marketing. Claire has a 3.69 cumulative GPA and has been named to the President’s List twice. She has also been named to the Southern Conference All-Academic Team three times. Claire was recently selected for a very competitive internship program with Southwest Airlines for the summer where she will be doing marketing for the Rapid Rewards program. Last summer Claire completed an internship in Sydney, Australia with the Youth Hostel Association Ltd.
April 7 • Jonathan DiIanni (So. • Men's Golf)Jonathan DiIanni is a sophomore on the men’s golf team majoring in finance. Jonathan has a perfect 4.0 GPA and was named to the President’s List in the fall. Due to his performance in his Principles of Financial Accounting class in the fall, Jonathan was given the opportunity to serve as an accounting tutor for fellow Elon students. He is continuing to excel in the classroom this spring. Jennifer Platania, associate professor of economics, says, “Jonathan is one of my top students! He is an awesome, hard-working student!”
March 17 • Sam Hershberger (So. • Men's Basketball) Sam Hershberger is a sophomore on the men’s basketball team majoring in psychology. Sam earned his highest semester GPA in the fall with his Dean’s List performance. He was also selected to participate in Elon’s Summer Undergraduate Research program where he will conduct a research project entitled “Does the supplementation of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) improve cognitive function in healthy adults??” throughout the summer. He will be working with Dr. Eric Hall and Dr. Paul Miller on his research.
March 10 • Sam Coffer (Jr. • Women's Basketball) Sam Coffer is a junior on the women’s basketball team majoring in biochemistry. Sam was recently selected to the 2014 CoSIDA Academic All-District 3 First Team, based on her performance both on the court and in the classroom. Sam maintains a 3.93 GPA and has been named to the SoCon All-Academic Team twice. She was also selected to participate in Elon’s Summer Undergraduate Research program where she will conduct research with a chemistry professor throughout the summer.
March 3 • Kate Murphy (Jr. • Women's Soccer) Kate Murphy is a junior on the women’s soccer team majoring in journalism. Kate was selected by the Elon School of Communications as their nominee to the Carnegie-Knight News21 summer program and she was recently selected as a fellow for this prestigious program. Elon is one of few select universities that can nominate top journalism students as fellows for the program. As a result of being selected, Kate will work full-time out of the digital newsroom at Cronkite University (Arizona State University) for 10 weeks. She was recommended based on her academic excellence and strong journalism skills. This summer’s topic is lobbying and laws related to gun ownership around the country. Kate has been on the President’s List or Dean’s List every semester, and has earned Academic All-Conference honors twice.
February 24 • Jordan Johnston (Sr. • Women's Tennis)Jordan Johnston is a senior majoring in media arts and entertainment. Jordan earned the highest GPA of her career last fall with her President’s List performance. Jordan has been able to utilize the skills from her academic course work to create videos for the annual athletics awards banquet in 2013, and to work with the athletic communications office on various projects. Jordan completed an internship over the summer with the BB&T Atlanta Open tennis tournament. In addition, Jordan spoke on behalf of Elon’s student-athletes at the Night of the Phoenix fundraising event on February 21st.
February 17 • John Loughery (So. • Football) John Loughery is a sophomore majoring in sport and event management. John was recently selected to participate in the 2014 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program and will receive a stipend to carry out his research goals. He will be working with Dr. Tony Weaver to examine if NCAA Division I schools that have eliminated football have seen an increase in the success of men’s basketball. John has been named to the Dean’s List in each of his first three semesters and earned SoCon All-Academic Team honors.
February 10 • Chanelle Smith (Jr. • Volleyball) Chanelle Smith is a junior majoring in strategic communications with a minor in digital art. Chanelle earned her highest GPA in the Fall 2013 semester with her Dean’s List performance. She is very passionate about her academic work and has been able to combine that with her athletic interests in many different ways including designing team t-shirts and posters, creating highlight videos, and creating infographics.
December 2 • Jason Waterman (Jr. • Men's Soccer) Jason Waterman is a junior on the men’s soccer team majoring in communication science. He is minoring in psychology and leadership. Jason was recently selected to the 2013 Capital One Academic All-American Division I Men’s Soccer Third Team, based on his performance both on the field and in the classroom. The academic achievement is the first for Jason and the fourth Academic All-American accolade for the men’s soccer program. Jason maintains a 3.65 GPA and has been named to the SoCon All-Academic Team twice. He was also selected to participate in the Executive Intern Program through the Elon President’s Office.
November 18 • Kaitlin Stober (Jr. • Women's Cross Country) Kaitlin Stober is a junior on the cross country team who is double majoring in sociology and art. She is also minoring in psychology and women’s/gender studies. Kaitlin recently served as a panelist on a community forum about healthcare reform on the recommendation of sociology professor Thomas Arcaro. She has also received accolades for her artwork, including second place awards for her drawing “Locket” and oil painting “Doughnuts”. Her talents in art have been displayed for the third consecutive year in Elon’s Student Juried Exhibition and have also been published in the Colonnades Art and Literary Journal. Kaitlin serves as the creative director for the SPARKS peer education program at Elon. In addition, she is involved with the Alamance Girls in Motion program where she works with 4th and 5th grade girls to promote positive body image and self-esteem. Kaitlin is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Gamma Mu Honor Societies. She maintains a 3.92 GPA and plans to pursue a doctorate in sociology.
November 11 • Brian Kowalski (Jr. • Men's Tennis) Brian Kowalski is a junior majoring in exercise science. Brian is currently conducting research with Dr. Wally Bixby to examine the differences between a portable metabolic measurement system and a standard metabolic system in various types of exercise. Overall, the goal is to determine if the portable unit is as effective as the standard unit in recording levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide. He plans on gaining even more valuable experience by completing a practicum experience this summer. Brian is a Dean’s List student and earned ITA Student-Athlete honors last year.
November 4 • Sebastian Gomez (Sr. • Baseball) Sebastian Gomez is a senior majoring in exercise science. Sebastian is on track to achieve his highest-ever semester GPA at Elon. He has had a particularly strong beginning of the fall semester, with A’s on several tests and assignments. After graduation, Sebastian plans to attend a chiropractic graduate program.
October 28 • Megan Kirschling (So. • Track & Field) Megan Kirschling is a sophomore double-majoring in marketing and entrepreneurship. As a freshman, she achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA and made the President’s List in the fall. She followed that up with a Dean’s List performance in the spring, in addition to earning the Southern Conference Commissioner’s Medal for Academics. Megan is a consistently great student, and many professors comment on her preparation and participation in class. She is having another stellar semester this fall with A’s on several exams, papers, and presentations.
October 21 • Frida Jansaker (Sr. • Women's Tennis) Frida Jansaker is a senior double majoring in finance and management. She achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA in the 2013 spring semester and was honored as an ITA Scholar-Athlete and academic all-conference member. She is continuing her strong performance this fall. Carri Tolmie, international business professor, says, “Frida is an excellent student! She is constantly participating in class discussions with thoughtful comments and questions. She is very motivated and hardworking. She is a wonderful student to have in class!” In addition to her strong classroom performance, Frida completed an internship with Live Oak Bank in Wilmington, N.C. Frida served as an assistant relationship manager, analyzing small business cash flow, income statements and balance sheets. During her time at Live Oak Bank, she also performed risk management with LOB Industrial and Commercial Loan Portfolios. To help prepare her for the rigors of the banking world, Jansaker attended a credit boot camp to develop an understanding of SBA lending programs.
October 7 • Austin Sowell (Jr. • Football) Austin Sowell is a senior from Knoxville, Tenn., majoring in chemistry. This past summer, Austin was selected to participate in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program and received a stipend to carry out his research goals. The SURE program allowed him to continue the research that he had started the semester before under the guidance of Dr. Joel Karty. In this research, Austin works with Liesegang ring systems, which are periodically repeating bands of solid formed in a precipitation reaction in gel, with an overall goal to the project being to determine how nanoparticles move from the band-free to the band regions. Austin was successful in creating Liesegang rings with a cadmium sulfide system in a gel that was 0.6% agar. Austin will be continuing his research throughout the year with a goal of making a system with rings that have revert spacing, bigger to smaller. Once these systems have been created and duplicated, the next step will be to begin data collection through various techniques such as UV-Vis spectroscopy. Austin is a Dean’s List student and has also been named to the SoCon All-Academic Team.
September 30 • Mark Berlin (Sr. • Men's Soccer) Mark Berlin, a senior soccer player from Winston-Salem, N.C., completed a six-week intensive Arabic language study program this past summer at the Center for International Learning in Muscat, Oman. After expressing an interest to continue his Arabic studies in a Middle Eastern country, Mark decided upon Oman with the help of his family and Arabic professor Shereen Elgamal. Mark attended school in Oman for eight hours a day, five days a week, which consisted of four classes a day that were strictly in Arabic. Besides classes, he was able to meet daily with an Omani student from the local Sultan Qaboos University and was able to learn about the daily lives of students in Oman, as well as learn a great deal about the culture of Oman by traveling throughout the country and talking with people from various countries in the region. Mark’s Arabic professor, Dr. Elgamal says, “The immersive experience had such a strong impact on his Arabic proficiency that he was able to bypass the intermediate level and is performing very well in an advanced-level class. It is a pleasure to teach a hard-working student like Mark who takes his work so seriously and puts heart in what he does.” Mark, who currently has a 3.5 GPA as a political science major and international studies minor, plans to continue his studies by going to graduate school for Middle Eastern studies.
September 23 • Viviana Stavreva (Sr. • Women's Tennis) Viviana Stavreva, a senior tennis player from Arezzo, Italy, spent this past summer in Glasgow, Scotland, as in intern for Barclays PLC, a British multinational banking and financial services company. She was very grateful to gain valuable experience in operations at one of the top global financial services companies in the world. Viviana worked in client reporting, a division of wealth services and completed a week long training program in London. Her supervisor said that Viviana “has vast understanding of the issues being addressed (uncovered new issues & projects that will impact our processes) and has articulated in just the right detail all issues & trends by visualizing and making them extremely clear to understand the impact.” Last spring, Viviana earned a 3.90 GPA while double majoring in finance and economics, placing her on the President’s List. She was also an ITA Student-Athlete honoree and was on the SoCon All-Academic Team.
September 14 • Zora Stephenson (Jr. • Women's Basketball) This summer Zora Stephenson participated in the Elon in New York program. While taking the class “Streets of New York City," Zora also served as an intern with M Public Affairs. She assisted the public affairs firm with campaigns, presentations, and extensive research. Zora enjoyed her experience and gained further insight into the world of public relations, and the role that communications plays within politics. Zora has been on the Dean’s List three out of four semesters, and was also named to the academic all-conference team as a sophomore. She is a media arts & entertainment major with a minor in political science. Zora is currently enhancing her skills by serving as the sideline reporter for Phoenix Vision at all home Elon football games.
September 9 • Brennan McDavid (Sr. • Women's Cross Country) Ever since she can remember, Elon senior cross country runner Brennan McDavid has dreamed of being a television reporter. The broadcast journalism major earned the opportunity of a lifetime when she completed a paid internship in a top-ten media market for NBC WRC 4 news in Washington, D.C., this summer. As part of her internship Brennan went out with reporters for the station and conducted interviews in front of the camera. She would then edit her footage, write a story, track her voice and put together a video package that she could compare to the professional reporters at the station. Professor Richard Landesberg seemed very confident in McDavid’s abilities saying, “It won't be too long before Brennan is a professional reporter telling interns how it works”. Brennan is a diligent student who has been named to the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll every semester and earned academic all-conference honors in both her sophomore and junior years. Brennan will be building on the skills she learned this summer as an anchor for Elon Local News. To watch Brennan interviewing NFL players Donte Stallworth and Brian Orakpo at Redskins training camp, click
HERE.
