Mills Awarded NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship
(INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.) – Carnegie Mellon University senior track and field athlete Isaac Mills (Fairfax, Va./Oakton) has been awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship for excelling academically and athletically while showing leadership and commitment to the community. Twenty-one males and 21 females across all three NCAA divisions were chosen as recipients for the winter sports.
Mills was selected from a group of nominees participating in basketball, fencing, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor track and field, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving and wrestling.
As an indoor track and field runner, Mills has competed at the NCAA Division III Championships the past three seasons with his first appearance coming as part of the distance medley relay (DMR) in 2017. Last year, Mills qualified for the meet in the 800-meter run, reached the finals, and finished 11th in the nation with a career-best time of 1:53.68. This season, Mills returned to the national meet in the 800-meter run and finished 19th.
Mills has earned 14 All-University Athletic Association (UAA) honors through the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons and was a UAA Champion in the 4x800-meter relay this year at the UAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The senior mid-distance runner is also part of the DMR that holds the school record and three men's track and field championship teams, as the Tartans won both the indoor and outdoor titles in 2017 to go with this year's 2019 indoor title.
Away from the track, Mills served as the Student-Athlete Advisory Council president where he helped coordinate the annual Field Day for local Pittsburgh children. He also demonstrates other leadership qualities as a captain of the track and field team and a Carnegie Mellon Welcome Center Ambassador.
Mills carries a 3.59 undergraduate GPA in chemical engineering and will return to Carnegie Mellon next fall to complete his master's degree in chemical engineering. Throughout his time at Carnegie Mellon, Mills has interned at Expedition Technology Incorporated in Dulles, Virginia, spent a summer as a market research intern at RTP Company in Winona, Minnesota, and worked as a plant engineer intern at Covanta Energy in Lorton, Virginia.
Because Mills has maintained a GPA above 3.50 in conjunction with finishing ranked in the top 35 of an event or competing at the national meet, he has received All-Academic honors from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) three times. The Fairfax, Virginia, native has also been recognized by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) on the Academic All-District team for his accomplishments and academic standing.
The NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship is awarded to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically, and are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition or have completed their athletic eligibility. The Association awards up to 126 postgraduate scholarships annually, 63 for men and 63 for women. This season's NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipients (21 men and 21 women) represent winter sports participants, who will receive a one-time, nonrenewable grant of $10,000 to be used for graduate study within one year of the award.
The NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship was created in 1964 to promote and encourage postgraduate education by rewarding the Association's most accomplished student-athletes through their participation in NCAA championship and/or emerging sports.