MIT senior Jenny Astrachan was voted to the Capital One Academic All-America Division III Volleyball First Team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America on Tuesday. A second-team pick last year, she becomes the second player in program history to be a repeat honoree and is the third to secure a spot on the first team.
After leading the Engineers to the NEWMAC regular season title, Astrachan collected all-conference second team accolades as she ranked second in the league in kills (389), fourth in kills per set (3.35), and 14th in hitting percentage (.241). She was then tabbed for American Volleyball Coaches Association All-America honorable mention plaudits as she helped MIT advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Majoring in computer science, Astrachan is three-time NEWMAC Academic All-Conference recipient and is currently eligible to be inducted into the Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society and the Eta Kapp Nu National Honor Society. A software engineering intern at Dropbox, she has implemented a modular and responsive grid layout for Carousel. Astrachan also completed another software engineering internship at Google where she worked on a system to cache and display ads on search. At MIT, she conducted research in the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Lab and also served as the scholarship vice-president for Sigma Kappa sorority.
MIT is the all-time Division III leader in producing Academic All-Americas and ranks third across all NCAA divisions with 221 honors. In addition, the women’s volleyball program stands second with 19 selections as it trails Nebraska on the list.
