PRINCETON, N.J. -- Brown’s Zion Lewis and Penn’s Nia Akins earned the Ivy League's conference nominations for the NCAA Woman of the Year award. Lewis and Akins are 2-of-161 conference nominees that will move forward in the NCAA Woman of the Year process from a program-record 605 school nominees that included nine Ivies. 

The conference nominees include student-athletes from 21 different sports, spanning all three NCAA divisions. Of the 161 conference nominees, 59 compete in Division I, 39 in Division II and 63 in Division III. 

Forty-three conference nominees—including both Lewis and Akins—were multisport student-athletes during their collegiate careers. 

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.
 
Conferences can recognize two nominees if at least one is a woman of color or international student-athlete. All nominees who compete in a sport not sponsored by their school’s primary conference, as well as associate conference nominees and independent nominees, were placed in a separate pool to be considered by a selection committee. Four nominees from the pool were selected to move forward in the process alongside the conference nominees.

Lewis, a four-time All-Ivy recipient for the Brown women’s indoor and outdoor track & field teams, was named the Most Outstanding Field Performer of the Meet at the 2020 Ivy League Indoor Track & Field Championships. The political science major was a participant in the Brown Engaged Scholars Program and also served as the public relations chair of the Black Student Union. 
 
Akins—a nursing and nutrition science major and a member of the Penn women’s cross country, women’s indoor track & field and women’s outdoor track & field teams—was a three-time Most Outstanding Track Performer of the Meet at the Ivy League Track & Field Championships. Akins was 1-of-3 finalists for the USTFCCCA National Women’s Track Athlete of the Year and 1-of-10 athletes on the Bowerman Award watch list as the nation’s top collegiate track & field athlete. She was a member of the Sphinx Senior Society, the oldest and most prestigious honor society at Penn. 
 
The Woman of the Year Selection Committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will now choose the Top 30 honorees—10 from each division—from the conference-level nominees. The Top 30 honorees will be announced in September. 

From those 30 honorees, the national selection committee will determine the three finalists from each division. Finally, the members of the Committee on Women’s Athletics will select the 2020 Woman of the Year from the nine finalists this fall.