Thirteen Highlanders Named 2021-22 America East Presidential Scholar-Athletes

The America East Conference has announced that 12 student-athletes from NJIT have been named America East Presidential Scholar-Athletes for their outstanding academic achievements throughout their entire career, the league office announced Thursday.

The award recognizes graduating student-athletes who compiled a cumulative GPA of 3.75 or higher as an undergraduate student and earned their undergraduate this spring.

The NJIT award winners are led by Joao Costa (Business) from men's soccer who finished with the highest GPA in this year's senior class after posting a perfect 4.0 cumulative mark. 

The other award winners included: Keegan Ford (Biomedical Engineering) and Nick Gutierrez (Chemical Engineering) from men's lacrosse, Andrew Elcock (Industrial Design) and Grant Vurpillat (Business) from baseball, Fabrizio Doria (Industrial Engineering), Luc Smith (Business) and Gabriel Souza (Information Technology) from men's soccer, Joshua Franco (Information Technology) from men's swimming and diving, Stuti Vyas (Business and Information Systems) from women's track and field and Michaela Dungan (Biology), Makayla Greenfield (Business) from women's volleyball and Whitney Roth (Law, Technology and Culture) from women's soccer.

A record number of graduating America East student-athletes have received one of the conference's highest honors as 121 standouts were named Presidential Scholar-Athletes on Thursday afternoon. The award recognizes graduating student-athletes who compiled a cumulative GPA of 3.75 or higher as an undergraduate student and earned their undergraduate degree this spring.

In addition to registering a 3.75 GPA for their college career, honored student-athletes must have received their undergraduate degree in the academic year they are honored and have attended their institution for a minimum of two years.
 
"Achieving Presidential Scholar-Athlete status is one of America East's highest and most impressive individual appearance ," said Brad Walker, America East commissioner. "To acheive a minimum of a 3.75 GPA while competing as a Division I student-athlete is extremely impressive. We commend them on their incredible achievement."
 
Binghamton led the way with 17 student-athletes honored, followed by Hartford and Vermont (16),  New Hampshire (13), NJIT (12), Maine and UMass Lowell (11), UAlbany and UMBC (10) and Stony Brook (5).
 
The Presidential Scholar-Athlete Award program started during 2013-14 academic year. In total, 683 student-athletes have been honored as part of the program.

America East is proud to have one of most comprehensive academic awards programs in the country, which honors over two-thirds of its student-athletes for their success in the classroom, including its sports Scholar-Athletes and All-Academic honorees, Presidential Scholar-Athletes and its Honor Roll Elite 18 recipients.