Karee, Kiefel, Miller and Sloan Named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans

Karee, Kiefel, Miller and Sloan Named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – After having a record three Carnegie Mellon University men's cross country and track and field athletes named College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-Americans a season ago, the Tartans topped the record and had four garner the accolade for 2021. Junior Justin Kiefel (Downingtown, Pa. / Downingtown STEM Academy) landed a spot on the Men's Cross Country/Track and Field First Team, seniors Matt Karee (Elmira, N.Y. / Notre Dame), Bram Miller (Harmony, Pa. / Seneca Valley) were named to the second team while senior Matt Sloan (Harmony, Pa. / Seneca Valley) was named to the third team. It marks Karee's third straight appearance on the team after garnering second team recognition a year ago and third team honors after his sophomore campaign.

Karee graduated with a 3.97 GPA in mechanical engineering. Throughout his time at Carnegie Mellon, he has been a teaching assistant for fundamentals of mechanical engineering. This summer, Karre is interning at The Fulcrum Group in New York City. He has also interned for Valicenti Advisory Services and was a peer tutor for academic development on campus. He is also a member of Tau Beta Pi, an engineering honor society and will be returning in the fall to Carnegie Mellon to complete his master's in mechanical engineering.

Karee is a two-time all-region honoree in cross country and finished fifth at the regional event is junior year, the highest of his career, which led 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 2020 University Athletic Association (UAA) Indoor Championships while posting career-best times in the 3k, 1,500-meter and 800-meter runs this past spring.

Miller is also a mechanical engineer major and maintained a 3.78 GPA while participating in three sport seasons throughout his career as a Tartan. He was a captain on the football team and starting offensive lineman. He was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District team in football and in track and field after the 2019 season. In the fall of 2020, he was the recipient of the Engineering Goldsmith Award, voted best overall capstone project for all undergraduate engineering at Carnegie Mellon. Miller has been a Value Engineering Intern for Milwaukee Electric Tool in Brookfield, Wisconsin, the last three summers.

Miller became the first Tartan to earn two All-American honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the same year after placing second in the shot put and seventh in the discus throw this past spring. He also holds the school record in both events. The thrower is an eight-time all-region honoree, five time UAA Champion, two-time UAA Indoor and Outdoor Most Outstanding Performer in the field events and was named UAA Rookie of the Year in 2018.

Sloan graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA in electrical and computer Engineering. He recently started working for Apple in San Diego, California, as a data verification analysis engineer. Sloan received the Dr. William E. Brown Academic – Athletic Achievement Award prior to graduation, which is given annually to the male and female student-athletes at Carnegie Mellon who are four-year participants and have earned the highest GPA over their four years in varsity athletics. He has also hed interships at Interned at L3Harris Technologies during the summer of 2019 and Milwaukee Toll in the summer of 2020.

In competition, Sloan placed third at the 2020 UAA Indoor Championships in the high jump to garner All-UAA recognition. This past spring, he recorded a career-best mark in the triple jump.

Kiefel, an electrical and computer engineering major with a minor in machine learning, has a 3.97 GPA. He is currently a software engineering intern for Appian Corporation in McLean, Virginia. Last summer, Kiefel started work as a research assistant for Carnegie Mellon Visual Intelligence Studio where he researched applications of computer vision and artificial intelligence for first responders.

Kiefel earned All-American honors at the 2021 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships after placing eighth in the triple jump. He holds school records in both the long and triple jumps and is a four-time all-region honoree and in 2010 was name UAA Rookie of the Year for the indoor season after winning the UAA triple jump title. This past season, Kiefel was named Mideast Region Men's Field Athlete of the Year, becoming the program's first men's track and field athlete to garner a regional award.