WCS Speakers | Women Coaches Symposium

Dr. Cecile Reynaud, Former FSU Volleyball Coach

Dr. Cecile Reynaud was the head women’s volleyball coach at Florida State University for 26 years and a faculty member in Sport Management for fourteen years. She retired from a full-time position at FSU in 2015. She continues to teach three online graduate classes as an adjunct professor.

She has served in various national and international coaching and administrative positions with USA Volleyball, serving on the board of directors twice and from 2018-2020 served as the Board Chair. She has coaching experience at the World University Games, as a Junior National Team Head Coach, in the USA Volleyball High Performance Championships and in the FIVB World Grand Prix. She is also a member of the NORCECA Coaches Commission and currently serving on the USA Volleyball Foundation Board. She is a member of the World ParaVolley Judicial Commission.

Reynaud was the Deputy Competition Manager for Volleyball at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. She served as the Head of Delegation for the USA Volleyball Women’s Sitting Team at the 2012 Paralympic Games and the USA Volleyball Junior Boys Team at the 2015 World Championship.

Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi
Director, Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport

Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi is the Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota. LaVoi and the Tucker Team plan and host the Women Coaches Symposium. Prior, she was a Research & Program Associate in the Mendelson Center for Sport & Character at the University of Notre Dame (2002-05), an Assistant Professor and the Head Women’s Tennis Coach at Wellesley College (1994-98), and the Assistant Women’s Tennis Coach at Carleton College (1991-93). LaVoi played intercollegiate tennis at Gustavus Adolphus College winning the NCAA-III National Team Championships in 1990. In her primary line of research LaVoi focuses on the under-representation of women in the coaching profession and authored a new book Women in Sports Coaching (2016) and the Women in Collegiate Coaching Report Card, now in its tenth year. She co-produced with tptMN, Game On: Women Can Coach, a documentary about and for women coaches. Watch Dr. LaVoi’s 2016 Distinguished Lecture “Paradox, Pitfalls, & Parity: Where Have all the Women Coaches Gone?”

Dr. Courtney Boucher
Assistant Director of Research and Programming in the Tucker Center

Dr. Courtney Boucher is a feminist scholar who examines hiring practices and organizational culture of college athletic departments and the impact on women in sports leadership. She received her Ph.D. in Kinesiology, specializing in Sport Sociology with a minor in Sociocultural Studies in Education in August 2022. Boucher is now the Assistant Director of Research and Programming in the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport and an instructor in the School of Kinesiology. Boucher received her masters from the University of Minnesota in the spring of 2019, studying hiring practices of NCAA Division-I athletic directors. Before her graduate studies, Boucher was the Assistant Hockey Coach at her alma mater, Gustavus Adolphus College. Boucher graduated from Gustavus with B.A. in Chemistry and a minor in Political Science.

Vanessa Fuchs, CEO of WeCOACH

A veteran leader with 20+ years of experience in athletic administration, Vanessa Fuchs joined WeCOACH as Chief Executive Officer in March 2022. Before WeCOACH, she served 12 years as Senior Associate Athletics Director and Senior Woman Administrator at her alma mater, Florida State University. Vanessa’s tenure at FSU began in 2010, where she served in a variety of important leadership roles over the past decade. Named the 2015 Women Leaders in College Sports Division I Administrator of the Year and an FSU Champion Beyond the Game honoree in 2016, she was instrumental in providing strategic direction for departmental initiatives focused on student-athlete welfare, enhancing athletic performance, fundraising and revenue generation, gender equity, and diversity and inclusion.

In June of 2013, former Florida State President Dr. Eric Barron named Vanessa the school’s interim Athletics Director as she became the first woman to lead the Seminoles’ Athletic Department. The former Seminole basketball player was one of just seven women leading an athletics department among the 124 schools that participated at the FBS level in 2012.

Anna Goorevich (she/her/hers) is a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Kinesiology/Sport Sociology at the University of Minnesota, where she also serves as a Research Assistant in the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport. Previously, she was the 2021-2022 US-UK Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar at the University of Stirling in Scotland, UK where she received a master’s degree in Sport Management. Goorevich’s research interests revolve around the gendering of coaching and sport leadership, gender identity and sport participation, and menstruation and sport. Her previous research background has involved studies of coaching and gender essentialism, transgender athlete inclusion in sport, coach-athlete relationships surrounding menstruation, and gender inequity in youth soccer programs in the UK.

Dr. Emily Matheson, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research

Dr. Emily Matheson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR), and the Clinical and Project Specialist at EVERYBODY Consulting. In both roles, Emily works closely with community and industry partners to develop, evaluate and launch evidence-based mental health and well-being initiatives. In her research role at CAR, Emily leads global body image projects, with expertise in creating and evaluating interventions for digital and sporting contexts. She is currently the principal investigator on a large-scale, international project that aims to develop positive body image interventions for sport environments, with a specific focus on girl-identifying athletes and their coaches. In her role at EVERYBODY Consulting, Emily helps world leading brands and organizations with their impact journey, by helping them to develop and embed evidence-based mental health and wellbeing practices into their businesses.

Hannah Silva-Breen, doctoral student at West Virginia University

Hannah Silva-Breen, is a current doctoral student in sport, exercise, and performance psychology as well as a masters student in clinical mental health counseling at West Virginia University. She earned a masters degree in sport and exercise psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2022 where she also served as a research assistant in the Tucker Center. Prior to her graduate education, Hannah worked as a Mental Health Practitioner at the Emily Program where she supported clients in their eating disorder treatment. Her research areas of interest include body image and mental health in sport. Hannah’s goal is to improve the sport environment for all current and future athletes.

Dr. Sarah Zipp, Associate Professor at Mount St. Mary's University

Dr. Sarah Zipp is an Associate Professor of Sport Management at Mount St. Mary’s University (US). She is a leading researcher on sport, gender and menstrual health. She has taught at universities in the US, UK, Netherlands and as a guest in Japan and Singapore. She hosted the UK’s first academic workshop on sport and menstruation and has published numerous academic journal articles, book chapters and media articles on the impact of menstrual health in sport. Dr Zipp is the founder of Power to Play, Period – where she designs and delivers menstrual health education lessons and workshops to coaches around the world. These lessons are based on published research, with guidance from a diverse group of expert advisors and input from adolescent girls. In 2020, she was named the Early Career Scholar of the Year by the Journal of Sport for Development.