Samantha (Sam) was a research assistant at the Center while pursuing her PhD in Kinesiology. Her doctoral work focused on women’s health, specifically energy availability and the associations with estrogen and progesterone across the menstrual cycle. During her time in the Center, she participated in a wide range of research and programmatic activities, including a secondary analyses of an existing research database, planning the CWHW women’s research forum, and mentoring the Center’s Williams Scholars undergrads.
“I am so grateful for my time in the CWHW, Dr. Shultz and Dr. Dollar were superb mentors. There was a high focus on mentoring and growing as part of my role at the Center and exposing me to different aspects of women’s research, which helped prepare me for the next step in my career. The experience and knowledge I gained while working there was invaluable. I had the opportunity to mentor a Williams Scholar (nutrition undergraduate) to assist me with my dissertation data collection. This was a win-win as it allowed her to participate in data collection relevant to her field and gave me experience mentoring and supervising research assistants.”
–Sam Goldenstein
Upon graduation, Sam transitioned from UNCG to a post-doc at US Army Research Institute of Environmental medicine (USARIEM). Here, she works with a team of researchers that is focused on female Warfighter health and performance. Even though the Army opened all jobs to females in 2016, research assessing sex differences, particularly in combat roles and elite warfighters, remains insufficient. The team Sam works with is dedicated to closing this gap. She has contributed to studies evaluating sex differences in physiological and psychological responses among elite warfighters during a 60+ day Ranger course and in response to a 10-day heat acclimation. Upcoming studies aim to investigate the effects of long-acting contraceptives in various environments and expand research on sex differences among elite warfighters to include those within the Special Forces community.
Sam has also submitted grants for future research, with goals to 1) develop a screening tool for low energy availability in military men and women, and 2) validate assays for estrogen and progesterone in urine and saliva and to also develop algorithms to identify menstrual function in saliva. For her, working at USARIEM is a dream job, as she has 21 years of experience in the military and is deeply passionate about the military population. USARIEM also enables her to continue and expand her work in women’s health, leveraging her endocrine background to contribute to a variety of studies.
Sam hopes to maintain ongoing collaborations with the center. Their current collaboration is finalizing some secondary data analyses with the objective of providing an alternative to BMI that will serve as a better predictor of body composition and health.