Stanford's Bessie Noll named Pac-12 Softball Scholar-Athlete of the year
SAN FRANCISCO – The Pac-12 has named STANFORD’s Bessie Noll the 2017 Softball Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the Conference office announced today. The award, which is presented in each of the 23 sports the Pac-12 sponsors, was established to honor collegiate student-athletes that are standouts both academically and in their sports discipline.
Noll, a senior from Tokyo, Japan, maintains a 3.73 grade point average (GPA) in mechanical engineering and began working on her master’s degree in the same field, focusing in dynamics and computational fluids, during the spring of 2017. A 2017 All-Defensive team member, Noll worked and researched under Professor Mark Cutkosky in the Stanford Biomimetic Dexterous Manipulation Lab and researched topics that included mechatronics, prototyping and design, and Computer Aided Design and practice. Specific projects included testing and evaluating a Free Flying Space Gripper for NASA via gecko adhesive strips and a bistable grasping mechanism. This summer she will be serving as a TA for a seminar at Stanford on the Jet Engine, and working for a startup that is developing an automated in-home cooking device. She will be leading the mechanical design and manufacturing of the product as it moves into commercial development.
In order to be eligible for the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, student-athletes must be a senior (in athletics eligibility) on track to receive a degree, have a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher, participate in at least 50% of the scheduled contests in the sport and have a minimum of one year in residence at the institution. Each Pac-12 institution may nominate one individual per sport, and the winners are selected by a committee of Pac-12 staff members at the conclusion of each sport’s regular season. The athletic accomplishments of the nominees are a consideration in the voting for the award.
A Scholar-Athlete of the Year will be named in each of the Pac-12’s 23 sponsored sports: baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, beach volleyball, men’s cross country, women’s cross country, football, men’s golf, women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, men’s rowing, women’s rowing, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, men’s swimming & diving, women’s swimming & diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s track & field, women’s track & field, women’s volleyball, and wrestling. The award was first established during the 2008-09 academic year.
Also Nominated: Mo Mercado, Arizona; Sashel Palacios, Arizona State; Kylie Reed, California; Danica Mercado, Oregon; Taylor Cotton, Oregon State; Hannah Flippen, Utah; Ali Aguilar, Washington