At 18, Sam Moore believed her life had one focus: volleyball. Like many college athletes, her identity was rooted in the game. And in her family, elite athleticism was expected. Both of her parents are coaches and former collegiate athletes, and her older brother followed the same path.
“As soon as I knew what Division I volleyball was, I told my parents that I wanted to be a college volleyball player,” she recalls. “And they gave me all the resources to make it happen.”The roar of the crowd, the sting of sweat, the adrenaline coursing through her veins — these were the sensations that fueled Moore’s existence as a starter on the University of Portland’s volleyball team.
Until, in a single, heart-wrenching moment, the world she knew crumbled beneath her.
A dislocated patella took her out of the game for the season and her coaches told her the news no athlete wants to hear: “You’re never going to be as good.” For Moore, volleyball was purpose, direction, and even identity. And she was suddenly without all three.
“It’s hard to lose your sport. It’s hard to be 18 and be told that you’re never going to be as fast,” she says. “You’re confronted with the reality that your sport will end at some point, so it was tough.”
But the support from her strength and conditioning coaches in the weight room made her believe she could overcome her injury and return to peak performance. Determined to start fresh, Moore transferred to Western Oregon University (WOU), where she found her place in the strength and conditioning program.
Impact Report
Women comprise 43.5% of student-athletes in the U.S., according to the NCAA. Understanding how to improve their performance and reduce risk of injury is key to their success.
Women’s sports at Carolina have won 46 team national championships and 54 individual, relay, and doubles national titles.
“I went from academic probation to the dean’s list,” she says. “A lot of things got better once I found the path of exercise science.”
Today, Moore is not just a former collegiate athlete — she’s a coach, researcher, and advocate for changing how athletes train and perform. As a PhD candidate in exercise and sport science at UNC-Chapel Hill, her work combines scientific inquiry with a commitment to empowering female athletes, helping them better understand and maximize their physical potential.
“Ultimately, I use my expertise in sport and exercise physiology to try and push the needle for women,” she says. “Sport is a microcosm of society, and the need for women’s health is so necessary in every area.”
The making of a scientist
After graduating from WOU, Moore began an online master’s program in strength and conditioning, but began to feel stuck in a repetitive cycle — doing the same things and solving the same problems. Seeking new opportunities, she landed a sport science internship at the University of Utah to learn more about the research underpinning athletic performance.
Immersed in studies and data analysis, she encountered the world of sports through a new lens: exploring how female athletes respond to training differently than their male counterparts.
In response, Moore developed female-specific training protocols, which was considered groundbreaking work, especially in a field where assumptions about training simply didn’t account for women’s physiology. In 2019, she became the first woman to serve as director of sport science for an NCAA program at NC State. In a field traditionally dominated by men, the achievement was rare and hard-won.
“I got to do some of the most collaborative, innovative work there,” she reflects. “It was awesome.”
But what Moore really wanted was to pursue the answers to the complex questions surrounding female athletes, who face unique challenges like hormonal fluctuations, menstrual cycle variations, and the impact of different birth control methods — challenges that have been historically understudied in sport science.
And then she got an email from her current PhD mentor and associate chair for research in Carolina’s Department of Exercise and Sport Science, Abbie Smith-Ryan.
Smith-Ryan saw Moore’s potential beyond her resume, recognizing the tenacity and curiosity that Moore brought to her work. And since then, she has shown Moore critical research skills and a model of leadership that values innovation and empathy.
“From the moment I met Sam I knew she was special,” Smith-Ryan shares. “Her relentless commitment to improving the health and well-being of women athletes — and, really, all women — is inspiring.”
“I needed to get these skills to do this research so that I can convince people women matter and their training matters and maybe we should have different training protocols,” Moore says.
Early sport science research often relied on male participants because scientists assumed that male physiology was the “default” or “standard,” and that the findings could be generalized to everyone. Moore believes researchers often use the complexity of female physiology as an excuse to exclude them in sport science.
Specifically, the menstrual cycle is often viewed as a complicating factor in research on female athletes, leading to many studies excluding women due to the perceived variability introduced by hormonal fluctuations. Some researchers feel that controlling for this variable would make studies too complex or difficult to execute.
“Because exercise and sport science have been so incredibly male-dominated, it’s not shocking that men don’t inherently consider the impact of menstrual-based fluctuations in sport performance or training adaptations,” she says. “Regardless of research experience, our female athletes deserve better than we have given them.”
Female athlete insights
Under the guidance of Smith-Ryan, Moore’s current research and PhD dissertation centers around a deceptively simple concept: availability. It’s a metric that evaluates how frequently athletes are available to participate in their sport without restriction. From a team perspective, availability is the percentage of athletes ready to train and compete. For the individual, it’s the number of sessions they can play.
Availability can be influenced by a host of factors like injury, sickness, fatigue, and even academic pressures. Moore aims to uncover the unique factors that impact the availability of female athletes at the elite college level.
“Right now, sex is the largest predictor of injury,” she explains. “And that’s not modifiable or helpful.”
So far, her research has uncovered several key determinants that can influence female athlete availability. Data points like bone density, sleep quality, and lean mass — the weight made up of muscles, bones, and organs, excluding fat — have shown promising correlations with an athlete’s ability to stay healthy and available for training and competition.
In her dissertation, Moore uses a combination of data sources to track and analyze athlete availability over the course of a competitive season. The project incorporates daily wellness surveys, body composition analyses, and sleep quality assessments. Athletes are monitored on a daily basis, with data collected throughout the season, from preseason training through the championship rounds.
Moore’s research is comprehensive. For instance, she regularly collects blood samples to assess markers of health, while also utilizing wearable devices that track heart rate, sleep patterns, and recovery. In addition, athletes periodically visit her lab for more detailed testing, such as measuring muscle mass or assessing strength.
Each data point provides a clearer picture of how various factors, like nutrition and sleep, impact an athlete’s readiness. But many of these determinants work together, which means that for peak performance, female athletes may need to focus on optimizing several factors simultaneously.
By isolating key factors that influence availability, Moore hopes to provide valuable insights that can improve training regimens and reduce injury rates in this population. Her work could lead to more effective and individualized performance strategies, not just for female athletes, but for athletes of all genders.
From the lab to the gym
Through collaborations with sports teams, Moore bridges the gap between research and application. She works closely with the coaches, athletes, and support staff on various Carolina teams to implement evidence-informed practices and provide individualized education on female health and performance.
“One of the things that I’m really passionate about is preparing female athletes for the rest of their lives,” she says. “They’ll be here for four years, but they’ll be a woman forever. We teach them about their physiology, how to leverage it, and that their period isn’t a weakness — it’s simply a roadmap.”
Research shows that women can compete at their highest level at any point during their menstrual cycle. But Moore notes that symptoms of the menstrual cycle or the side effects of birth control can have a more pronounced impact during training than during competition.
She offers three strategies for optimizing training across the menstrual cycle. First, she encourages athletes to track both their physical and psychological symptoms. Next, Moore recommends auto-regulation, which allows athletes to adjust the intensity, volume, and type of exercises based on how they feel each day. Finally, she teaches athletes to listen to their biofeedback — how their body feels during training and recovery — and adjust in real time.
For example, a weightlifter might feel stronger while they’re ovulating due to a spike in estrogen levels but weaker during menstruation because of inflammation and typical period symptoms like fatigue, cramping, and mood swings.
But every woman’s body is different, which is why Moore’s approach — tracking symptoms and adjusting to their body’s needs — works for athletes at all levels. By encouraging flexibility, active people can create training plans that align with natural fluctuations and avoid pushing through unnecessary discomfort.
After graduating in May, Moore will continue her research at the University of Oklahoma, where she recently accepted a job as assistant professor of sport data analytics. In that role, she’s hopes to continue advancing knowledge on female athletes.
“We want to push the science forward for women, and we want to innovate, but we don’t just want to innovate for the sake of change,” she stresses. “We want to innovate to make people’s lives better.”