Indianapolis, Ind. (November 28) – Former fencer Kristen Palmer '23 has been announced as one of nine finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year as announced by the selection committee on Monday. She is the third MIT student-athlete to accomplish this feat and joins Karenna Groff '22 (soccer) and Margaret Guo '16 (swimming and diving), both NCAA Woman of the Year winners, on this list.
 
The nine finalists, each of which are Top 30 honorees, consist of three student-athletes from each NCAA division. Each finalist was selected for her outstanding achievements in academics, athletics, community service, and leadership. Of 619 student-athletes nominated for this award, 164 student-athletes were selected as conference-level nominees. That pool of student-athletes was narrowed to the national Top 30 honorees.
 
Palmer is a two-time first-team U.S. Fencing Coaches Association (USFCA) Division III Sabre All-American after earning second-team USFCA National Collegiate Sabre All-America recognition. She appeared in two National Collegiate Men's and Women's Fencing Championships and finished 16th in 2023 as one of two Division III sabre qualifiers. The team captain was a two-time Northeast Fencing Conference Sabre All-Star first-team honoree, earning conference Fencer of the Year and Rookie of the Year in 2020 and was named her team's Most Valuable Player the same year.
 
Majoring in electrical engineering and computer science with a minor in Chinese, Palmer was a two-time College Sports Communicators At-Large All-District selection, a three-time USFCA All-Academic team member and a two-time USFCA Scholar of Distinction. She taught high school students in South Africa and Botswana the basics of machine-learning robotics and artificial intelligence with MIT Global Teaching Labs. Palmer also researched the use imaging methods to embed unobtrusive but machine-readable physical codes in objects in MIT's Human-Computer Interaction Engineering Lab. She was a campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee representative and was co-president of Juniper House, a living group centered on celebrating achievements of Black women. Palmer was a member of the Black Students' Union, Black Women's Alliance, National Society of Black Engineers, and Society of Women Engineers. She volunteered as a college access and career advisor tutor, working with members of her local community and through alumni groups to review college essays and applications, offer computer science tutoring and support students in finding scholarships.
 
On January 11, 2024, the Top 30 honorees will be celebrated during a ceremony at the NCAA Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. There, the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year will be named.
 
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