Staff Directory

Kellie Staples

Title:
Senior Associate Director of Athletics/Advancement/SWA
Email:

As the Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Advancement, Staples has oversight of athletics fundraising and alumni engagement. Staples works closely with University Advancement on strategic planning, including helping to develop strategy on all athletics endowment and capital fundraising. She oversees the Athletics Advancement team which spearheads annual fundraising, including the sport-specific Athletics Friends Groups, the Princeton Varsity Club (PVC) and Tiger Athletics Give Day (TAGD). In addition to fundraising, Staples and her team oversee athletics alumni engagement and programming including working directly with athletic leadership volunteers across the Athletics Friends Groups and the Princeton Varsity Club Board of Directors.

Staples began her tenure with Princeton Athletics in November 2005, serving as the Assistant Director of Athletic Relations/PVC. She was promoted to Associate Director of Athletics of the PVC in 2008, Senior Associate Director of Athletics for External Relations in 2015, Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Advancement in 2019 and was named Senior Woman Administrator in 2022.

A 2001 graduate of Colgate University with a BA in English and History, Staples was a captain of the women’s soccer team and Colgate’s 2001NCAA Woman of the Year nominee. Staples earned a Masters in Sport Management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2003. Following graduate school, Staples worked in the Harvard University Department of Athletics in marketing and community relations and then the Massachusetts Amateur Sports Foundation/Bay State Games before joining Princeton Athletics in the fall of 2005.

Staples and her husband, Steve, reside in Princeton, NJ with their two sons, John and Cole.