New Senior Associate Athletic Director

Alexis Mastronardi, the director of athletics at Emmanuel College since 2015, was recently hired as Tufts’s senior associate athletic director / senior woman administrator. Mastronardi replaces Branwen Smith-King, who left Tufts in June following a 35-year career as the head coach of women’s cross-country and track and field teams and as assistant director.

At Emmanuel, Mastronardi was named the 2017 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Executive of the Year following a vote by her fellow athletic directors across the conference. In her role at Tufts, Mastronardi will help with administering all aspects of the department and managing day-to-day operations, and she will directly supervise several operational units and varsity sports.

“I am thrilled to welcome Alexis to the Jumbo family,” said John Morris, Tufts director of athletics. “Alexis is a highly respected leader with a tremendous depth of experience in Division III athletics, and she has a genuine passion for the ideals that Tufts Athletics stands for. I’m confident she’ll play an integral role in leading Jumbo Athletics to new heights moving forward.”

In 2001, Mastronardi began working at Emmanuel College as an assistant athletic director, assistant women’s basketball coach and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee advisor. She was promoted to associate athletic director in 2003 and worked in a variety of expanded roles across the department over the next 12 years. In 2015, Emmanuel appointed Mastronardi to serve as the Director of Athletics. In that role, she very successfully directed all aspects of Emmanuel’s 16-sport Division III athletics program and helped lead the Saints to their first-ever GNAC Women’s Commissioner’s Cup in 2016. Mastronardi twice won Emmanuel’s college-wide "Staff Unsung Hero Award."

“I am very excited to be joining the Jumbos family,” Mastronardi. “With the incredible history behind Tufts athletics and the tremendous success that the program has enjoyed over the past several years, I am honored to be a part of this team moving forward.” 

While an undergrad at Skidmore, Mastronardi was a two-sport student-athlete in basketball and softball.  She was Skidmore’s Student-Athlete of the Year in 1996 and a two-time captain, and she still holds Skidmore’s single season and career records for assists in women’s basketball.

Before making a career switch to intercollegiate athletics, Alexis worked for four years in the criminal justice system for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department. She has master’s degrees from Boston University and Emmanuel College.

Sports Information Director Paul Sweeney can be reached at paul.sweeney@tufts.edu.