Jessica Padilla enters her eighth year at Oberlin in 2025-26 after she joined as an assistant for the Oberlin College swimming and diving team at the beginning of the 2018-19 season.
In her seven years with the program, there have been nine All-NCAC finishers, 126 top-ten program times, and ten school records. The Crimson and Gold have produced 102 NCAC Academic Honor Roll recipients, 16 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District selections, 26 College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Scholar All-America teams, and two CSCAA Academic All-America honorable mention honorees. Â
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Before Oberlin, Padilla served as an assistant coach at Elyria Catholic High School. On the Panthers staff, she worked with the head coach to develop training regimens and monitored practices and swim meets.
Prior to coaching, she was a pool manager at the Lorain County Metroparks and Greater Cleveland YMCA. As a pool manager, she supervised and trained lifeguards, directed swim lessons, and managed in-services to ensure lifeguards’ skills and that the facility operated efficiently in accordance with standards.
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She was a competitive swimmer through high school and continued to swim in college on the club team at Ohio State University.
Padilla earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Ohio State University in 2014, followed by a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cleveland State University in 2020 and a master's degree in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve in 2025.Â
