The 2026 NACDA Athletic Director of the Year, Alanna Wren C'96 begins her sixth year as the T. Gibbs Kane, Jr. W'69 Director of Athletics and Recreation at the University of Pennsylvania in 2026-27.
Penn has achieved significant competitive success under Wren’s leadership, finishing a school record 52
nd in the Learfield Directors’ Cup in 2023-24 after tying the all-time best mark of 60
th in both 2021-22 and 2022-23 (out of more than 350 Division I programs). It is the best four-year span in the Directors’ Cup standings in Penn history. The Quakers have won 20 regular season conference team championships during that time and another ten postseason conference titles.
Penn teams have also had success on the national and international stage. Men’s squash has won two national championships (2024, 2025) and women’s squash won the national championship in 2026. Salman Khalil defeated teammate Omar Hafez to win the individual national title in 2025, with Hafez winning the individual title a year later. In 2024, men’s fencer Bryce Louie won the NCAA foil championship by beating teammate Blake Broszus. Women’s lacrosse advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals two straight years, men’s lightweight rowing was the IRA runner-up in 2024, and men’s and women’s fencing each finished fifth at NCAAs in 2026. Newly hired men’s basketball coach and alum Fran McCaffery led the Quakers back to the NCAA Tournament in 2026. Twelve Penn alumni or current student-athletes competed at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
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Gymnastics has won five straight GEC regular season and postseason titles. In 2022-23, baseball, men’s soccer and women’s lacrosse all won NCAA Tournament games, while women’s rowing and fencing each finished sixth at the NCAA Championship and women’s golf advanced to the NCAA Regionals. In 2021-22, Penn boasted two individual national champions, men’s squash finished as the national runners-up and men’s lacrosse reached the NCAA quarterfinals.
The physical footprint of Penn Athletics has also been improved, including the opening of renovated facilities such as the Burk-Bergman Boathouse on the Schuylkill River, Tommy Lasorda Field at Meiklejohn Stadium for Penn’s baseball program, and the Coulson Family Training Complex in Franklin Field. The Ott Center for Track & Field opened in the fall of 2024 followed by the T House powered by Quaker Fuel, a student-athlete fueling station and community space. Sheerr Pool was also renovated and opened for varsity and campus utilization in 2025. Renovated men’s and women’s lacrosse locker rooms in Franklin Field opened in spring 2026, and four renovated locker rooms in the Hollenback Center (baseball, men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey) opened in the summer of 2026.
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Campus Recreation has seen significant growth with the hiring of a new director and the creation of partnerships with PennMed and PennHr to bolster campus community wellness via utilization of campus recreational facilities via subsidized memberships. Student body engagement for recreational facilities has increased 8% and overall student facility usage has increased 10% from 2024-25 to 2025-26. Campus Rec also launched Healthy Penn Partners, a cross-campus wellness committee connecting student and employee wellness resources, and Club Sports Strength & Conditioning, the first program of its kind in the Ivy League and at Penn.
Other highlights in Wren’s first five years include:
- Hiring of Penn’s first athletics mental health professional;
- Addition of a full-time sports dietician;
- Launching the Women’s Health Initiative, designed to proactively support the health, performance, and long-term well-being of female student-athletes;
- Hiring of Penn’s first Head of Community Engagement and Wellbeing, in a shared position with the Penn Museum;
- Launch of fundraising campaign specifically for women’s athletics, Power the Next 100;
- Growth of the Penn Athletics Wharton Leadership Academy, including hiring the first full-time director
- Successful return and growth of the Penn Relays following two years off due to the pandemic;
- The hiring of 15 new head coaches;
- The growth of the Young Quakers Community Athletics program to include men’s and women’s basketball and sprint football in addition to men’s and women’s lacrosse and men’s and women’s track & field;
- More than $133M raised in commitments for annual, endowment and capital needs, including securing three gifts of more than $20M
- Negotiated a multi-year partnership with NIKE and BSN SPORTS that will keep Penn student-athletes outfitted in products from the world's leading designer of athletic footwear and apparel.
Wren was the Deputy Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator at Penn from 2012-16 and Executive Director of the Penn Relays from 2011-16, capping an almost-twenty-year career that she began as Assistant (and then Interim Head) Women's Lacrosse Coach. She played women's lacrosse for all four years as an undergraduate and went on to earn an EdD and MS in Higher Education Administration from the Graduate School of Education, while working as an Assistant, Associate, and Senior Associate Athletic Director.
Wren was formerly Vice Provost for Student Affairs at Johns Hopkins University for two years after serving there from 2016 to 2019 as Director of Recreation and Athletics. As Director of Athletics and Recreation, she oversaw the university's 24-sport athletic program, leading it to the most successful years in university history, with 37 conference titles and three consecutive top ten finishes in the Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup standings, including a second-place finish in the 2018-19 academic year.
As Vice Provost for Student Affairs since August 2019, she continued to focus on student well-being, developing a new Hopkins Student Center, expanding the O'Connor Center for Recreation and Well-Being, leading the university's efforts to reimagine the student experience during the pandemic, and managing all aspects of academic, residential, and extracurricular university life for more than 8000 graduate and undergraduate students.
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