Whittaker Named to Final 30 for 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year Award
 
 
PHILADELPHIA – The NCAA's Woman of the Year Selection Committee has announced the Top 30 honorees for the prestigious 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, and recently graduated University of Pennsylvania track star Isabella Whittaker is included in that list.

Selected from a record 627 school nominees—a group that was then narrowed to 168 nominees by a vote of conference offices—the Top 30 honorees include 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions. Each honoree has demonstrated excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership. The honorees represent 15 sports, including three student-athletes representing NCAA Emerging Sports for Women. They have a variety of majors, including cell and molecular biology, neuroscience, biochemistry, civil engineering, sociology, nursing, computer science, sport management and more.

Whittaker is the second Penn woman to advance this far in the process, behind Nia Akins who was a Top 30 selection in 2020. The NCAA Woman of the Year program is rooted in Title IX and has recognized graduating female college athletes for excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership since its inception in 1991.

"It is exciting to hear that Bella has been recognized among the top 30 in the NCAA Women of the Year voting," said Steve Dolan, the James P. Tuppeny/Betty J. Costanza Director of Track & Field/Cross Country. "Bella's impact at Penn extended well beyond her outstanding results as a runner. She was a leader in everything she did, whether it was working with Young Quakers through our program or holding leadership positions with different student groups in athletics and on campus. Never mind being a great athlete; she represented everything great about being a University of Pennsylvania student. I could not be prouder that she is being recognized for this incredibly prestigious honor, she is certainly worthy of the recognition."

The 2023-24 co-recipient of the University's prestigious Association of Alumnae Fathers' Trophy, Whittaker was a first-team All-America on the track when she finished fifth in the 400 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships last spring. Following that, she qualified for the United States Olympic Team when she took sixth overall in the 400 at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Whittaker was the USTFCCCA Mid-Atlantic Region Track Athlete of the Year following the outdoor season last spring, and before that she shared Track Athlete of the Meet honors with teammate Fore Abinusawa at the 2024 Indoor Heptagonal Championships. Whittaker won three individual Heps titles last year, the indoor and outdoor 400 and the outdoor 200, and ran on Penn's winning 4x100 outdoor relay in helping the Quakers take the team title at both meets. She graduated with four individual program records—the indoor and outdoor 400, the indoor 500, and the outdoor 200—and holds the Ivy League mark in the indoor and outdoor 400, in both cases breaking records that had stood since 1990. Whittaker also was part of four program-record and three Ivy-record relay teams at Penn.

A graduate of the University's College of Arts and Sciences who earned her degree in communication, Akins was a multi-time USTFCCCA All-Academic selection during her time at Penn and voted second-team Academic All-America by College Sports Communicators (CSC) as a senior.

Whittaker has not completed her athletic eligibility and will compete as a grad transfer at the University of Arkansas this winter and spring.

"These honorees represent the very best of what it means to be a student-athlete, and the character-building potential that is inherent in all athletic pursuits. They have distinguished themselves among the many thousands of collegiate athletes who find and surpass their limits every day on the journey to becoming their best selves, not just in sport, but in life," said Marion Terenzio, chair of the Woman of the Year Selection Committee and president of SUNY Cobleskill. "I congratulate all of the remarkable women named to the Top 30 and applaud their demonstrated ability to create positive change in themselves and in the world around them."

The selection committee will determine three honorees from each NCAA division, for a total of nine finalists. From those finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will choose the 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year.
 
At the NCAA Convention in January, the NCAA Woman of the Year will be named, and the Top 30 will be celebrated.