New York Rower Izzy Campbell Finds Her “True North” at Cambridge by way of Canada

Photo Credit: Katie Bahain Steenman

By Marie DeNoia Aronsohn

On the March 12, crew selection day for Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race 2026, Isobel “Izzy” Campbell (Hughes Hall 2025) was among the names called out to compete in the Blue Boat on April 4. Not a surprise for this elite athlete. Campbell’s passion, energy, and intelligence have fueled her high-performance sports and academic career.

“What I really appreciate about rowing is that it’s one of those weird sports where if you put in more time, you will get better. You get out what you put into it,” said Campbell. She apparently put in a lot, overcoming early setbacks in high school, painful blood blisters, and tough seasons.

Campbell’s background is a mix of geographic influences that took her from New York to Canada to California to Cambridge.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, when it came to competing in the National Under 23 Rowing Championship last year, she chose to represent Canada. “I love Canada.”  

Her affinity for the so-called “Great White North” grew out of years of annual visits as a child to her “hometown away from home,” Chatham Ontario. “It’s this little town an hour and a half north of Ontario. I get Canada from my dad and his side of the family,” said Campbell.  “I did apply to compete for the US as well, but I said yes to Canada.”  

She first said yes to rowing at Northfield Mount Hermon High School, a private boarding school in Massachusetts, where she earned top sports and scholar honors. At the University of California, Berkeley, where she completed her undergraduate degree last year, she collected similar recognition – making The Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) Scholar-Athlete award List, the ACC All-Academic Team, and the Dean’s list at the UC Berkeley Rausser College of Natural Resources where she majored in Environmental Economics and Policy.

Now at Cambridge studying for her master’s in Global Risk and Resilience, writing a dissertation on the potential consequences and geopolitical implications of melting permafrost, she finds herself in the grueling seven-day a week training for one of the most widely watched and anticipated annual sports events in the world. 

“I didn’t grow up watching the Boat Race. I had heard of it, my mom’s English. At UC Berkeley, every year a few people would apply to Cambridge, and it seemed like this otherworldly option,” said Campbell. “I watched the Boat Race in 2024 and 2025, and I thought it was so cool and that I would love to do that! Then I got in. Crazy!”

Campbell has made her tight schedule — which includes coaching the rowing team at Gonville & Caius College — something of a science. She traded in her “granny bike” for a more aerodynamic road bike and cut her commute to the morning train to practice at Ely by three minutes. 

“I got the nine-minute ride down to six minutes.”

The singular rivalry with Oxford, the swift currents of the Thames, and the one-on-one competition of the Boat Race, has been a surprising part of her time at Cambridge. “It’s very different for NCAA’s or worlds.” That said, Campbell is planning to stay either in or near Cambridge well after she completes her degree.

“It’s just so pretty and so old. The US gained their independence in 1776, and the University was founded in 1209!”

She knows race day will put her and her crew under extreme pressure and anticipates the eighteen or so minutes of the competition to be a head down, deeply focused, internal experience. 

“We are a very good crew. We are grinders. We sit in the grit and dirt of the race.”

To the question about whether her team will win, her answer is simple and well aligned with Campbell’s trademark dynamism, optimism, and precision. “Obviously. And we’ll beat the (18 minute and 23 second) record and make it in 18 minutes and 22 seconds.”