College of Engineering student athletes honored for their work in the classroom
Four Wayne State College of Engineering student athletes have been voted to the CoSIDA Academic All-District At-Large First Teams as announced by the organization.
Each school is allowed to nominate up to four individuals per gender for the all-district ballot. Four of the six spots garnered by Wayne State are students in the College of Engineering. Selected were junior swimmers Manuela Ferreira (Ibague, Colombia) and Elly Maleski (Cedar, Mich. / Traverse City West), sophomore fencers Ziad Elsissy (Alexandria, Egypt) and Zuzanna Sobczak (Gdansk, Poland).
All athletes will advance to the CoSIDA Academic All-American national ballot.
Ferreira maintains a 3.88 cumulative GPA in Engineering. She was a two-time Honorable Mention All-American (200 medley relay & 100 breast) in 2015 and won two GLIAC titles (200 Medley Relay & 400 Medley Relay). In her collegiate career, she is a three-time All-American (First Team in 100 breast in 2014; Honorable Mention in two relays in 2015) and a three-time GLIAC Champion (200 Medley Relay twice & 400 Medley Relay once). Ferreira is a seven-time First Team All-GLIAC (finished third in 100 breast twice plus seventh the other year; second place in 400 Medley Relay) performer. Academically, she is a two-time GLIAC All-Academic Excellence Team selection and was named to the CSCAA Scholar All-American First Team in 2014. She has earned a spot on the Athletic Director's Honor Roll (term gpa 3.5+) all five semesters including one 4.00 term.
Maleski maintains a 3.77 cumulative GPA in Biomedical Engineering Honors. She was a four-time First Team All-American in 2015 (3 relays + 1 individual) and earned one Honorable Mention All-American honor (relay). Maleski was a three-time GLIAC Champion (2 relays plus 100 back) in 2015. In her collegiate career, she is a 12-time First Team All-American and has won four GLIAC titles on relays and one individual title (100 back in 2015). Maleski was a 2014 CoSIDA Academic At-Large All-America Second Team selection. She was recently named a 2015 GLIAC Winter Commissioner's Award winner. Academically, she has earned a spot on the Athletic Director's Honor Roll (term gpa 3.5+) five times with two 4.0 terms. She is also a three-time CSCAA Scholar All-American First Team honoree.
Elsissy maintains a 3.54 cumulative GPA in Chemical Engineering. He was a Second Team All-American in 2015 after placing seventh out of 24 fencers in the men's sabre competition at the NCAA Collegiate Championship. Elsissy earned First Team All-Midwest Fencing Conference honors in 2015. He was named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll (term gpa 3.5+) for Fall 2013 and Fall 2014.
Sobczak has a 3.91 cumulative GPA in Civil Engineering. She earned Honorable Mention All-America accolades with her 11th-place finish in the women's foil at the 2015 NCAA Championship after placing second at the NCAA Midwest Regional. A two-time NCAA National Championship qualifier, Sobczak finished 14th in 2014 and improved to an 11th-place finish in March. She also improved upon her fifth-place finish at NCAA Midwest Regional as a freshman, to a second-place finish in 2015. A First Team All-Midwest Fencing Conference selection, Sobczak has been named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll (term gpa 3.5+) all four semesters with two 4.0 terms. She is also a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
*Credit to Jeff Weiss, Wayne State's Associate Athletics Director/Media Relations for story content
# # #
Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering 380 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students. For more information about engineering at Wayne State University, visit engineering.wayne.edu.