Two Pamplin College of Business graduates from the Master of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Business Analytics (MSBA-BA) program have been recognized in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s inaugural class of Graduate Scholar-Athletes of the Year.
Benjamin Reynolds ‘25, MSBA-BA ‘26 and Erin Kelleher ‘25, MSBA-BA ‘26, members of the Virginia Tech track and field team, are among eight Hokies and more than 260 student-athletes league-wide to earn the new distinction. The recognition, announced by the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in August, honors student-athletes who complete a graduate degree while continuing to compete. In individual sports, that means competing at the ACC or National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships during a season as a graduate student.
For Reynolds and Kelleher, that meant balancing a rigorous 30-credit-hour analytics curriculum and nine-month corporate capstone alongside a full competitive season.
Reynolds, a distance runner from Caerphilly, Wales, came to Blacksburg after three years at Oregon, earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Virginia Tech, and moved straight into the MSBA-BA program. He raced from 800 to 5,000 meters for the Hokies, holds career bests of 3:40.12 in the 1500 meters and a sub-four-minute mile, and has been named to both the Academic All-ACC and U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-Academic teams. During the program he also served as a graduate assistant with Pamplin’s Center for Business Analytics and worked on projects with the Virginia Tech National Security Institute.
“Balancing Division I track, a graduate assistantship, and a one-year master’s degree in business administration was a unique challenge, but I loved every second of it,” Reynolds said. “Jay, Shannon, and the rest of the MSBA-BA team were always supportive of my athletic pursuits and helped me balance my time.”
Kelleher, a pole vaulter from Avondale, Pennsylvania, arrived at Virginia Tech as a two-time high school All-American who still holds Delaware’s indoor and outdoor state records in the event. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business with a marketing management major from Pamplin before entering the MSBA-BA program, and has also been named to the 2025-26 USTFCCCA All-Academic team. Her capstone team spent nine months with Norfolk Southern building a machine learning model to predict estimated arrival times for merchandise railcars, working with roughly 43 million rows of shipment data and presenting the final solution to the company at headquarters in Atlanta. She has since joined Booz Allen Hamilton as a digital transformation specialist.
“The MSBA-BA capstone project pushed me to think critically, solve real business problems, and become a more confident communicator,” Kelleher said. “The past year was extremely rewarding, and I feel confident in my ability to carry everything I’ve learned into the next chapter of my career.”
The MSBA-BA is a 12-month, in-person cohort program that pairs a business core with coursework in descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Its corporate-sponsored capstone has partnered teams with organizations including NASA, Leidos, Norfolk Southern, and HP.
“In the MSBA-BA program, we ask a lot of our students in a short amount of time,” said Jay Winkeler, director of MSBA programs. “Ben and Erin tackled the program on top of Division I competition and still delivered at the highest level in both arenas, and we couldn’t be prouder of them.”
For more information about the M.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Business Analytics (MSBA-BA) program, visit msba.vt.edu/ba.
