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Posted: Jun 11, 2021

Balta, Beaudoin Named CoSIDA Academic All-District for Women’s Volleyball

volleyball player wearing red top hitting a right-handed kill attempt with a volleyball player in a gray top hitting a left-handed kill attempt. Includes logo with words Academic All-District Team and text of Diana Balta and Vivian Beaudoin

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – Carnegie Mellon University senior Diana Balta (Media, Pa. / Penncrest) and junior Vivian Beaudoin (Washington, N.J. / Warren Hills) were named to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District Women's Volleyball Team, as announced by the association. The pair join nine others honored on the District 4 team and are the first Carnegie Mellon volleyball players to earn the distinction since 2009. To be nominated for the award, a student-athlete must be a starter or significant reserve and maintain a GPA of 3.3 or better.

Carnegie Mellon is part of District 4 that is comprised of all Division III schools in the state of Pennsylvania. Both Balta and Beaudoin will now move on to the national ballot for Academic All-America recognition.

Balta is a four-year starter for the Tartans who started her career as a defensive specialist and finished as an outside hitter. Playing front and back row as a junior, Balta tallied 192 kills with 251 digs, 38 services aces and 43 blocks. In four matches this season, Balta was second on the team in kills with 22 and third in digs with 38.

A dual major in materials science engineering and biomedical engineering, Balta graduated from CMU in May with a 3.64 GPA. She earned a senior leadership award, the team's Tartan Award, and the Frank Brunckhorst Presidential Scholarship. Balta served as the public relations and marketing chair for Plaidvocates, was a teaching assistant for social psychology and was due to work at Bristol Myers Squibb as a bioanalytical sciences-pharmacokinetics and immunology intern in 2020 before the opportunity was canceled.

Beaudoin entered the starting lineup full time as a sophomore and was second on the team in kills with 226 and third in blocks with 70 on her way to earning All-University Athletic Association (UAA) Second Team honors. She had eight matches with double-digit kills and recorded a career-high seven blocks against Otterbein University with six against third-ranked Juniata. In four matches this season, Beaudoin led the team in blocks with 15 and was third in kills with 20.

In the classroom, Beaudoin maintains a 4.0 GPA as an electrical and computer engineering major. She volunteered with Special Olympics and CMU Field Day in 2019, and is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Honor Society and Tau Beta Pi, the Carnegie Institute of Technology Honor Society. Additionally, Beaudoin is a member of the Society of Women Engineers and Women in ECE. This past fall, she was honored at the Student-Athlete Academic Achievement Celebration, which celebrates juniors and seniors carrying the highest GPAs across each academic college and team.

In the summer of 2020, Beaudoin was a software development engineering intern at Amazon while she is working as a hardware design verification intern at Apple this summer before returning to CMU for her senior season.