AMHERST, Mass. — Amherst College forward Alyssa Xu of the NESCAC champion women's ice hockey team has been selected as an Academic All-American. Xu was named to the 2025 Academic All-America Women's At-Large Second Team for Division III by College Sports Communicators.

Xu is the 48th Academic All-America selection in Amherst history dating back to 1982 and the third women's ice hockey player honored, joining Kirsten Dier '10 and Jocelyn Hunyadi '19.

Xu graduated from Amherst summa cum laude this spring with a degree in neuroscience and a 3.99 grade point average. The Bayside, New Brunswick, native authored a thesis titled, "Tale as Old as Time: Investigating the Temporal Dependency of Inner Ear and Lateral Line Inputs on the Larval Zebrafish Acoustic Startle Response." Xu was one of 11 Canadians chosen this year to receive a Rhodes Scholarship and will begin work towards a master's degree in translational health sciences at Oxford University in England. She also served as president of Amherst's chapter of Amnesty International, worked as an EMT on campus, conducted research at Baystate Medical Center and Yale Medical School, and volunteered with the Tapestry Mobile Health Clinic and Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton.

On the ice, Xu earned Second Team All-NESCAC honors as she tallied eight goals and nine assists this season to help the Mammoths win the NESCAC Championship and reach the NCAA Division III national championship game for the second time in three years, where she was named to the All-Tournament Team.

The Academic All-America teams recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the field of play and in the classroom. The teams are selected from Academic All-District honorees by the membership of College Sports Communicators, with teams named in 14 sports and the at-large teams that cover sports not represented by their own team. This year's Division III women's at-large teams feature 45 student-athletes who compete in fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rowing and water polo. Xu is one of five ice hockey players included on this year's teams.