Josie Konopka joined the Yale women's crew staff in June 2026 as an Assistant Coach.
Konopka comes to New Haven after a stint at Penn as an Assistant Coach and Recruiting Coordinator. She came back to Penn after one year as an assistant coach at the University of Virginia in 2024-25. She helped the Cavaliers to a tenth-place finish at the NCAA Championship following a runner-up finish at the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship.
Prior to Virginia, Konopka spent the 2023-24 season on Penn's staff as an assistant coach. That year, the Quakers continued to make history as they qualified for the NCAA Championships for the third straight year and had all three NCAA boats earn top-12 finishes for the first time (1V8 10th, 2V8 10th, V4A 11th) en route to a tenth-place team finish. At the Ivy League Championship, Penn took fourth in both the overall and NCAA point standings and the Red and Blue earned silver medals in the Varsity Eight, the Third Varsity Eight, and the Third Varsity Four.
Konopka was a two-year captain for the Quakers and earned first-team All-America honors from the College Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) and first-team All-Ivy two times. She helped lead the Quakers to their first full-team NCAA Championship appearance in 2022, when Penn finished 11th, and then was in the two-seat in 2023 as the Quakers' Varsity Eight won silver at the Ivy League Championship and followed that up with a fourth-place finish at NCAAs. Overall, Penn took sixth as a team. Konopka then moved back into her usual spot in the stroke seat as Penn made its debut at both the Henley Women's Regatta and Henley Royal Regatta, helping the Quakers advance to the final of the Royal's Island Challenge Cup final where they were nipped at the finish by the reigning British University champion, Oxford Brookes.
