A New Jersey native who has served as associate head coach and assistant coach at Penn for the past 10 seasons and helped the Quakers to 10 NCAA Tournament berths and eight Ivy League titles, she becomes the seventh head coach in the program’s 43-year history.

“Melissa brings a record of experience and accomplishment that has positioned her to bring great success to our Scarlet Knight program,” said Hobbs. “Her reputation for developing student-athletes, both academically and athletically, is well known. With the Gary and Barbara Rodkin Academic Success Center rising, women’s lacrosse will have a best-in-class facility to cultivate recruits and advance the program. Melissa has the vision and enthusiasm necessary to realize the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead for the Scarlet Knights. We are very excited to welcome her into the Rutgers Athletics family.”

“I am beyond excited to join the Rutgers family as the women’s lacrosse head coach,” said Lehman. “I want to thank Pat Hobbs, Sarah Baumgartner, Kate Hickey and the entire search committee for believing in me and sharing in my vision for leading this program into the future. This is an exciting time for Rutgers Athletics, as the university continues to enhance the student-athlete experience with the new world-class facilities and holistic programming. I could feel the passion and support for this program as soon as I stepped on campus, and am eager to begin working alongside the talented coaches, administrators and staff across the department. On a personal level, I can’t wait to get back to my home state to start building this Big Ten program into a national competitor.