Karee, Kalapos and Walsh Named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans

(AUSTIN, Texas) – For the first time in program history, three Carnegie Mellon University men's cross country and track and field athletes have been named College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-Americans. Junior Matt Karee (Elmira, N.Y./Notre Dame) landed a spot on the Men's Cross Country/Track and Field Second Team with seniors Josh Kalapos (Mt. Lebanon, Pa./Mt.Lebanon) and Liam Walsh (Gaithersburg, Md. / Quince Orchard) being named to the third team. It marks Karee's second straight appearance on the team after garnering third team recognition a year ago.

Karee maintains a 3.95 GPA in mechanical engineering. This past year, he was a teaching assistant for fundamentals of mechanical engineering. Karee has interned for Valicenti Advisory Services and was a peer tutor for academic development on campus. The junior is also a member of Tau Beta Pi, an engineering honor society.

Karee is a two-time all-region honoree in cross country and finished fifth this year at the event to lead the Tartans. He has run at two NCAA Cross Country Championships. On the track, Karee recorded a career-best time in the 5k at this past year at the UAA Indoor Championships.

Kalapos carries a 3.82 GPA in computer science and has been a teaching assistant at Carnegie Mellon for Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming and was a Robotics teaching assistant for the Summer Academy of Mathematics and Sciences. He has previously interned for Google as a Site Reliability Engineer and for Zensors and Zulama.

In competition, Kalapos holds the school indoor record in the 5k that he set at the 2019 University Athletic Association (UAA) Indoor Championships with a time of 14:35.95, which was then the UAA record. That time landed him a selection to the 2019 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships where he placed 19th. Kalapos also had a standout cross country career, earning two all-region honors and running at three NCAA Cross Country Championships.

Walsh, a mechanical engineering and engineering & public policy major, has a 3.72 GPA. He has interned at TRC Engineering and was a research assistant at Carnegie Mellon. He won "Best Overall Project" at the MechE 2019 Fall Design Expo for his scalable item retrieval and storage system. Walsh is also a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council.

Walsh was named an All-American for the 2020 NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field season after qualifying for the meet with a personal-best time of 4:14.36 in the mile run. He is a five-time all-region honoree on the track and was part of the UAA Championship 4x800 relay team in 2019. Walsh also earned two all-region honors and ran at three NCAA Cross Country Championships.