Austin, Texas (June 7) - Senior Anya Chase (Wells, Maine) and sophomore Katia Pendowski (Elk Grove Village, Ill.) of the MIT softball team have been named First Team CoSIDA Academic All-Americans it was announced today. This is the first time in program history the Engineers have had two student-athletes on the First Team as Chase and Pendowski become the eleventh and twelfth student-athletes to be honored with the award as the program has now earned 15 Academic All-America awards. The Engineers and Texas Lutheran were the only programs with two student-athletes on the First Team.
 
33 student-athletes were selected to the Academic All-America team with 17 boasting a perfect 4.0 GPA. The 13 members of the first team have a combined GPA of 3.92.
 
Chase wrapped up her career at MIT on a high note, as she finished the season with a 17-10 record and a 1.78 ERA. She concluded the year with the third-most strikeouts in a single season with 153, and her 17 wins are the fourth-most in a single season. Chase was named an NFCAA Second Team All-Region honoree and Second Team NEWMAC All-Conference. In addition, she was also named to the NCAA Ashland Regional All-Tournament team. Chase earned her degree in mechanical engineering with a 4.9 (3.92) GPA. She was an active member of the Little Beavers Running Club, SAAC, and the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program. She was a Pi Tau Sigma Mechanical Engineering Honor Society member and held internships at Boston Scientific, Keolis, and IDEXX. Chase was also a Thermal Fluids Teaching Assistant and spent time at the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science Research Assistant.
 
Pendowski, who was just one of two sophomores named to the first team and one of the 17 overall members with a perfect 4.0 GPA, is pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in music. She concluded her first season with a single-season record of seven home runs and led the team with a .375 average, and finished second on the team with 34 RBI. Pendowski was named an NFCA First Team All-Region and Second Team All-American and also earned First Team All-NEWMAC laurels. Off the field, the sophomore is the co-coordinator of Public Relations and Make the Magic at Camp Kesem, which is an organization that supports children whose parents have Cancer. There she is a camp counselor and maintains the program's social media accounts. She also organizes the annual fundraising gala, Make the Magic, which raises money to send children to camp for free. Pendowski was also a paid undergraduate researcher in the MIT Ideation Lab where she worked with the user-centered design of high-performance cookstoves and worked to develop a novel toy product in MIT's core mechanical engineering course.
 
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