Julie Byron was named Canisius' Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) on Sept. 1, 2026. Byron joins the Canisius athletic department’s senior leadership team after spending the previous seven years working in various roles at Marist University.
Byron has administrative oversight of academic advising, compliance, sports medicine and Canisius’ student-athlete development efforts. She also as the primary campus liaison to Canisius’ academic operational and student-service units, and she is the primary point of contact for Canisius’ Faculty Athletic Representative. As the school’s SWA, she represents the University at all Metro Conference and NCAA meetings, and she handles administrative oversight for several of Canisius' varsity sports programs.
Byron came to Canisius after serving as the director of university events at Marist for the last three years. Before moving to that position, she was the assistant athletic director for intramurals, club sports and camps from 2019-23. In that role, she facilitated and managed daily operations for Marist’s 18 club programs, which consisted of more than 2,800 undergraduate students, and she also handled other administrative duties for Marist’s varsity sports programs.
From 2006-22, Byron served as an event manager for ESPN Regional Television and the Basketball Hall of Fame. There, she helped organize numerous NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball MTEs (Multiple Team Events) and managed relations and operational procedures among event promoters, host venues, broadcast partners, and participating schools.
A 1996 graduate of Hartwick College, who went on to earn her master’s degree in athletic administration from Springfield College in 1999, Byron spent six years (2001-07) working at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (now the Metro Conference) office in Edison, N.J. There, she started as the league’s director of special events before being promoted to assistant commissioner for women’s basketball. In her time with the conference office, she served as the championship director of the league’s women’s basketball tournament, while also holding the same role for multiple sports at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. The tournament manager for the 2006 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship First and Second Rounds and the 2002 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship, she served as the assistant tournament manager for three other NCAA events, including the 2003 Frozen Four and the 2004 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship First and Second Rounds. Both of those events were held at KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo.
Byron and her husband Sean, the head men’s volleyball coach at Daemen University, have two daughters, Grace and Calleigh.
