Jessica De Palo is in her 13th year as Columbia’s Senior Associate Athletics Director for Success Through Well-Being. Named to her position in August, 2011, De Palo is responsible for all day-to-day operations for Columbia’s Success Through Well-Being program, which oversees all department matters on academics, career development, mental performance, sports nutrition, leadership, and well-being. Additionally, De Palo is a member of the senior management team and sub-committee member of the department’s diversity, racial justice, equity, and inclusion committee, We Roar Together.
Prior to arriving at Columbia, De Palo was the managing director of The Focus Room in New York City, a qualitative research provider, from 2008-11.
De Palo has an extensive background in intercollegiate athletics, having served as an assistant women's basketball coach at Iona College from 2006-08, and as a women's basketball graduate assistant coach at Lehigh University from 2005-06. Additionally, De Palo is a former team captain and Patriot League Player of the Year on the Lehigh University women's basketball team.
De Palo graduated with a degree in marketing from Lehigh University in 2005 and later earned a master's degree in technology-based elementary education in 2006. De Palo also completed her master’s degree in the Department of Clinical Psychology from Columbia University, Teachers College in psychology in education, with a concentration in spirituality and mind/body practices in 2018. She is currently a certified doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University and completed a Fulbright-EDUFI Fellowship in Jyväskylä, Finland in 2022. De Palo’s research during her Fulbright fellowship looked at student-athlete career adaptabilities in relation to well-being, career construction, student and sport identity, and school and sport burnout.
A Highlands, New Jersey, native, De Palo helped anchor one of the greatest seasons in girls basketball history in the area, with the Red Bank Catholic Caseys going 31-0 in 2000. De Palo was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2000 Tournament of Champions and is currently in the Red Bank Catholic Hall of Fame.
