Ivan Alvarado was named Pratt Institute’s Head Cross Country & Track & Field Coach in September 2025. He arrived in Brooklyn after four seasons at The Catholic University of America as an assistant coach.
While at Catholic, Alvarado designed and led training for the cross country and mid-distance/distance runners. During his tenure, Catholic produced one NCAA All-American, five USTFCCCA Second-Team All-Americans, 11 NCAA championship qualifiers, 23 USTFCCCA Academic All-Americans, 17 CSC Academic All-District honorees, 17 Landmark Conference champions, and 26 conference or school records. He was also part of three award-winning Landmark Coaching Staff of the Year—two in cross country (2023, 2024) and one in track & field (2024).
The Cardinals’ women won back-to-back Landmark cross country titles in 2023 and 2024—the program’s first since 2012—while Kate Inglis became just the third NCAA cross country qualifier in program history and the first since 1991. On the men’s side, Catholic finished runner-up in 2021 and 2022, with JJ O’Rourke earning two NCAA cross country berths, the program’s first male qualifier since 1991. In track & field, the women captured the 2024 conference title, and Alvarado’s training group accounted for more than half of the team’s points at each conference championship from 2022–25. The women’s 800/mile groups also closed the 2024 indoor season ranked 10th and 11th nationally in NCAA Division III event squad rankings.
Before Catholic, Alvarado served as head coach for men’s and women’s cross country and track & field at Howard Community College. His teams delivered some of the best finishes in program history, including runner-up at the 2019 NJCAA Division III Cross Country Championships and second place at the 2021 NJCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships. HCC also earned NJCAA Academic Team All-America honors in Spring 2021 (3.29 GPA). Individually, his athletes captured national accolades, highlighted by a two-time decathlon champion (Grant Bunyard), a heptathlon national champion and All-American (Cassidy Bunyard), and National Field Athlete of the Year (NaShae Early).
After serving in the United States Air Force for five years as a military analyst, Alvarado began his coaching career in Columbia, Maryland, at Atholton High School, where he guided the girls’ track & field program to multiple county titles and coached athletes to 10 MPSSAA state championships, 25+ regional titles, 30+ county titles, and more than 15 school or county records. Notably, he coached Paralympian Hannah McFadden to the U.S. National “B” Team standard in the wheelchair 200 meters and a third-place finish in the T52 400 meters at the 2014 U.S. Paralympic Championships, qualifying her for the World Paralympic Championships.
He holds a B.A. in International Studies from Towson University and associate degrees from Howard Community College and the Defense Language Institute.
