Emily Miller, a senior co-captain of the Johns Hopkins volleyball team, has helped lead the volleyball team to the ECAC tournament and has logged one of the most successful seasons in volleyball's history.
Emily started playing volleyball in high school in Richmond, Va. She had no prior experience but her height made her an ideal player. After success on her high school team, she began to play for the Junior Olympic team at the Richmond Volleyball Club. However, Emily has not always focused on volleyball.
In high school, Emily played both soccer and volleyball. As a successful soccer player, Emily was not sure which sport she wanted to pursue in college.
At the encouragement of her high school volleyball coaches, Emily began to look at volleyball programs. She also decided to focus on volleyball because she had not played the sport as long and thought she had less of a chance of becoming "burned out."
Once Emily decided to play volleyball in college, she chose to attend Hopkins because it had a strong pre-med program and she liked the volleyball coach.
It appears that Emily made a wise decision. Playing the position of outside hitter, she has led the volleyball team to a successful season. With freshman composing over half of the team, there were some difficulties at the beginning of the year. The team lost several senior starters last year, and three freshmen start for the team this year. However, after working out the personnel issues, the volleyball team has come together for a victorious season.
The Hopkins volleyball team had several important conference matches in October. They beat both Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg, matches that Emily describes as being "very big wins." No other Centennial Conference team has ever beaten both teams in the same season.
Emily credits the team unity and the fan support, saying, "The team really came together and everything fell in to place. We had a lot of fans supporting us and we played very hard."
Those wins earned the Blue Jays a bid to the Centennial Conference tournament.
While they eventually lost in the semi-finals to Muhlenberg, Emily said that making it to the tournament was the team's main goal. This weekend the volleyball team will travel to Moravia College in Pennsylvania for the ECAC tournament. They play against Grove City College on Friday and if they win, they will compete against Franklin & Marshall on Saturday.
While Franklin & Marshall is surely looking to avenge their regular season loss to Hopkins, Emily is confident that if the team plays well they have a good chance to win the tournament. She said that the most important aspect of the weekend is that the younger players can gain court experience.
Emily devotes a significant amount of time to volleyball, but she also participates in several other activities. She worked in a research lab at the Johns Hopkins Medical School studying genetic medicine and imprinted diseases.
Emily has also participated in clinical research at the Medical College of Virginia. She studied the effects of breast-feeding on infant size and development. In addition to her research experience, Emily had the unique opportunity to work in a hospital in Nicaragua. "Nicaragua," Emily explainrf, "is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere."
She worked in the emergency room, which was really a small, 12-foot by 12-foot room with very crude medical equipment. She had the opportunity to perform several minor procedures such as giving shots and suturing wounds.
Emily noted that it was especially interesting to see the effects of the very limited resources on the quality of health care. Because there were no ambulances, very sick patients often walked three or more miles to receive healthcare. The hospital also saw at least seven or eight malaria patients each day.
In addition to Emily's extensive work in healthcare, she plays for the club soccer team in her limited time. Emily is majoring in English and biology and plans to attend medical school next year. With a GPA over 3.5 and her significant contributions to both the volleyball team and the health care community, it is clear that Emily will succeed in medical school and whatever else she chooses to pursue.
