COLORADO SPRINGS - The Colorado School of Mines distance running duo of Zoe Baker and Duncan Fuehne have earned the RMAC's highest academic honors, being named the Scholar-Athletes of the Year by the conference.

It is a repeat win for Baker and the first for Fuehne, who are both graduate students as members of the Mines cross country and track & field teams. Baker is the third Oredigger women to win the award and the first to win it twice; Chloe Cook (2020) and Megan Wenham (2019) also won it. Fuehne is the first Mines man to earn the honor since basketball's Gokul Natesan in 2017.

The pair will be honored as part of the RMAC's Hall of Fame banquet on July 13 in Colorado Springs. 

Baker, a native of Longmont, Colo., holds two Mines undergraduate degrees in computer science and computational and applied mathematics and is in graduate school working on a master's in computer science. One of the most decorated student-athletes in Mines history, Baker is a 13-time all-American and three-time Academic All-American, including the 2022 Academic All-American of the Year, and was one of nine national finalists for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. In 2022-23, Baker ended cross country season an all-American and the NCAA Elite 90 Award winner as she placed 33rd nationally and led Mines to third place as a team. On the track, Baker was a first-team all-American in the indoor 5,000m and outdoor 10,000m as well as a second-teamer in the outdoor 5K; she was a three-time RMAC silver medalist and helped lead Mines' women to their first-ever RMAC indoor team title. Baker was the RMAC Academic Athlete of the Year across all three seasons in 2022-23, and was the Blaster Awards winner as Mines' female academic athlete of the year.

Fuehne has a B.S. in engineering physics from Mines and is currently working on a master's degree in physics. The Los Alamos, N.M. native was the NCAA Elite 90 winner in cross country this past season, and on-course he finished third in the nation to help Mines win the team title. A three-season all-American in 2022-23, Fuehne was the 2021 and 2022 RMAC Cross Country Academic Runner of the Year and is a two-time First-Team All-RMAC finisher in the fall. On the track this year, Fuehne was a first-team All-American in the 5,000m outdoors and earned second-team finishes in the outdoor 10,000m and indoor 5,000m. In his career, Fuehne is a five-time all-American, he was a 2022 CoSIDA First-Team Academic All-American, and the 2023 Blaster Awards winner as Mines' co-male academic athlete of the year in 2023.