World-Class Rowing Experts to Speak at the 2025 USRowing Masters Conference

USRowing is thrilled to introduce a distinguished lineup of speakers and experts who will be sharing their insights at this year’s USRowing Masters Conference, set to take place on Saturday, May 17, 2025. The conference will bring together Olympic coaches, sports scientists, and industry leaders from around the world to discuss all the best practices and strategies to train and develop masters rowers. 

Rebecca Caroe

Topic: Growing Masters Rowing

Rebecca Caroe is a masters rower and a rowing coach who co-founded Faster Masters Rowing, an education business supporting masters and coaches.

Caroe learned to row at Pembroke College, Cambridge, UK. She has coached athletes from age 10 to over 70 years old and enjoys the challenge of helping athletes understand how a boat moves and ways to make it go faster. She started the Rowperfect rowing blog in 2007 until 2018. Her writing is now on the Faster Masters Rowing blog.

She was honored to be invited by the BBC to commentate at the London Olympics 2012 as an in-studio expert. She rows at North Shore Rowing Club in Auckland, New Zealand where she practices with a growing group of masters rowers.

Stephanie Fryer

Topic: Small Bites: Managing Anxiety and Nerves

Stephanie Fryer, EdD, MS, MA, CSCS is mental performance consultant with a doctoral degree in sport psychology, a masters in clinical mental health, and a masters in kinesiology. She is currently the Learning & Development Associate at USRowing.

Her primary research focus is on trauma and abuse in sport settings, particularly in the US. Dr. Fryer’s dissertation investigated ACEs in the household and in the sport setting in elite and sub-elite gymnasts. 

As an athlete, Dr. Fryer was a Level 10 gymnast before competing on the track and field and cross-country teams at Colorado College. After pursuing pole vaulting professionally, she switched to Olympic-style pistol shooting and represented the United States in multiple World Cup competitions.

Maureen McAuliffe 

Topic: Recruiting and Retaining Masters Athletes, Small Bites: Mobility and Flexibility , Small Bites: Recovery for Aging Athletes

Maureen “Mo” McAuliffe is a certified personal trainer with over 15 years of experience in both rowing and fitness. She has represented the United States twice in the quadruple sculls at the Senior World Championships and in the eight at the U23 World Championships. She won Head of the Charles three times with her teammates, twice in the Championship Double and once in the Club four with coxswain. 

McAuliffe walked onto her rowing team in college at George Mason University, where she earned a degree in exercise science and was named All-Conference in the CAA her junior and senior year. She was captain her senior year and named a 2nd Team All American in 2011.  She has rowed for many programs over her career including Thompson’s Boat Center, Vesper, Riverside, and the National Team Training Center in Princeton. 

Before she began her elite rowing career, McAuliffe spent time at the National Personal Training Institute in Virginia and completed a 500 hour course. She has worked as a personal trainer and rowing coach since 2012.

Al Morrow

Topic: Drills and Skills

Al Morrow was a rower for 11 years before he became a coach. He rowed at Leander Boat Club, Western University, the University of British Columbia, and the St. Catharines Rowing Club. He was a member of Canada’s national team from 1970 to 1976, winning a bronze medal in the men’s four at the 1975 Pan Am Games in Mexico City. He ended his competitive rowing career as an alternate on the Olympic team at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Morrow’s coaching career began shortly after the 1976 Olympics when he was named head coach of the men’s rowing team at the University of British Columbia. After two years with UBC, Morrow moved on to become head coach at the University of Victoria in 1978. The program quickly became a national powerhouse, with eighteen past or present rowers becoming members of the 1984 Olympic team.

His first coaching opportunity at the national level came in 1977. He was hired in a full-time coaching position in 1986 by Rowing Canada at the National Rowing Team Training Centre in Victoria. In 1988, he moved back to his home province to lead the Ontario-based National Rowing Team Training Centre in London. Morrow became head coach of the women’s national team in 1990 and led the program to many successes until 2004. He coached at nine Olympic Games, and under his leadership, Canadian rowers won a combined 15 World Championships and eight Olympic medals (four gold, one silver, and three bronze).

In addition to his national team duties, Morrow was head women’s coach at Western University and led the school to historic success from 1988 to 2010. He has been inducted into eleven Sports Halls of Fame, including the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. He was named FISA Coach of the Year and received the Geoff Gowan Award for service to Canadian sport, as well as the Meritorious Service Award from the Lieutenant Governor of Canada.

Following great success on the international stage, he spearheaded a Coach Mentorship Program at RCA to support developing Canadian coaches with opportunities to improve their skills, knowledge, and experience—both on and off the water. Morrow has remained active—teaching coach education courses, volunteering for numerous rowing-related activities, and coaching high school, Masters, and at summer camps. He was Rowing Canada's Technical Representative at the 2022 Canada Summer Games. In 2019, he was instrumental in helping establish the first coastal beach sprint races hosted in Canada.

Linda Muri

Three-time World Champion Linda Muri began rowing as an undergraduate at MIT. Following her graduation with a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, she began working at Composite Engineering, Inc. in West Concord, MA—manufacturers of Van Dusen Racing Boats. 

Muri returned to rowing in pursuit of a U.S. National Team berth and began working at Riverside Boat Club in Cambridge, MA, where she repaired and serviced their rowing fleet. As she found success on the U.S. national team, she pursued a master’s degree in education from Harvard. Although Muri had previously coached at Simmons College in Boston, MA, and before that at the Middlesex School in Concord, MA, it wasn’t until she began coaching at Cornell University, while still competing for the U.S. Team, that she truly found her calling. At Cornell, she worked with the lightweight men’s squad.

Following three years at Cornell, Muri spent the next thirteen years in Cambridge, MA, as the assistant coach of the Harvard men’s lightweight crew. At Harvard, she significantly contributed to the program's success, leading the Crimson freshman lightweights to seven Eastern Sprints medals and five IRA medals. Her next move was to Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., where she became the head coach for the women’s rowing team, before setting off on her next adventure.

Muri's extensive international coaching experience includes mentoring former Harvard lightweight rower Andrew Campbell to gold medals in the single sculls at the 2013 and 2014 World Rowing U23 Championships, as well as bronze medals at the 2012 and 2018 Senior World Championships and the 2011 U23 Championships. Earlier, she helped guide three U.S. boats to gold medals at the 2010 World Rowing U23 Championships. From 2004–2005, she served as an assistant coach on the U.S. women’s junior team, helping the four and pair reach the grand finals at the Junior World Championships both years. Since 2004, she has coached at 14 different World Championship events.

Beyond coaching, Muri is a respected leader off the water. She served as President and Director of the CRASH-B Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championships from 2006 through 2013. She has also served on the Cambridge Boat Club Board of Directors, including one term as President, and on the USRowing Board of Directors, with eight years on the USRowing High Performance Committee (2001–2008). Since 1996, she has been a member of the Boston Athletic Association Board of Directors and has run the Boston Marathon twice.

In recognition of her profound contributions to the sport of rowing—especially lightweight rowing—the Harvard-Radcliffe and MIT women’s lightweight teams renamed their annual race the Linda Muri Cup in 2009.

As an athlete, Muri was a nine-time U.S. National Team member and a three-time World Champion. In 1994, she was a semi-finalist for the James E. Sullivan Award, recognizing the nation’s top amateur athlete. She is an 18-time U.S. National Champion, won 13 Head of the Charles Regattas, and earned two CRASH-B Hammers. Most recently, she won the 2018 FISA World Indoor Rowing Championship in the Masters E category. A committed competitor, she continues to enjoy training and racing in Masters-level events.

Dr. Volker Nolte

Topic: Technique for Masters: Maintaining an Efficient Recovery and Catch, Building Training Plans for Masters Rowers

Dr. Volker Nolte received a Physical Education Diploma (1976) from the University of Saarbrücken, a Civil Engineering Diploma (1979) from the Technical College Saarbrücken (Germany), and a Ph.D. (1984) in Biomechanics from the German Sport University in Cologne. From 1993 to 2019, he was employed at Western University as an Assistant Professor, teaching biomechanics and coaching, and served as head coach of the Western Mustang Rowing Program from 1993 to 2017. In June 2019, he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus from Western University.

Dr. Nolte has supervised numerous MSC graduates, and his research has resulted in many peer-reviewed journal articles and contributions to various publications. He is an internationally acknowledged expert in the biomechanics of rowing and was honored in 1984 by the German Sport Federation as the top natural science researcher in the “Carl Diem Wettbewerb” for his doctoral thesis, Die Effektivität des Ruderschlages (The Efficiency of the Rowing Stroke).

In 2005, he published the widely acclaimed book Faster Rowing, with a second edition released in 2010. This book has become a global standard for rowing coaches and athletes. His latest publication, Masters Rowing, was co-authored with Wolfgang Fritsch.

His research focuses on coaching and biomechanics in high-performance sport, particularly rowing. He is also a respected authority on rowing equipment, especially rigging. Based on his expertise, Dr. Nolte frequently presents at scientific and coaching conferences around the world. He has also influenced rowing innovation through the development of isokinetic training machines, specialized measurement tools, and new boat designs.

Dr. Nolte began his coaching career in Germany, where his teams won numerous German Championships and three World Championship medals. In Canada, he served as the Ontario Provincial Coach, leading the province’s men’s and women’s teams to banner victories at the 1993 Canada Games.

From 1993 to 2017, his leadership of the Western University Mustangs resulted in the men’s team winning 14 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Championships and six Canadian University Rowing Championships (CURCs). After taking over the women’s team in 2010, they won five OUA Championships and four CURCs. In 2008, the men’s eight won the German University Championships, the Temple Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta, and the Canadian University Championships.

In 2013 and again in 2015, Nolte’s Mustang teams achieved historic sweeps, winning all university events in Canada across both men’s and women’s divisions. In 2016, Western won both OUA Championships, the women’s CURC title, and two gold medals at the Head of the Charles Regatta.

Parallel to his university coaching, Nolte served as Rowing Canada Aviron’s lightweight men’s national team coach from 1992 to 2000 and was an assistant coach for the women’s national team from 2012 to 2016. His national team athletes earned an Olympic silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games, two World Championship titles in 1993 and 2000, and several additional medals at the World Championships. More recently, he coached Canadian women’s single scullers to bronze and silver medals at the 2012 and 2013 U23 World Championships. In 2015–2016, he again coached the Canadian women’s single, guiding them to two Pan Am Games gold medals, first place at the FISA World Cup in Varese, Italy, sixth place at the 2015 World Championships, and a 10th place finish at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

In recognition of his contributions to coach education, Dr. Nolte received the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in January 2013. He was named Ontario Coach of the Year in both 1993 and 2014. In 2017, RowOntario presented him with the President’s Award, and in 2018, Rowing Canada honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions across many areas of the sport.

Lauren Schall 

Topics: Keep the Love Alive: How to hold your passion for a lifetime of rowing, Recruiting and Retaining Masters Athletes

Lauren Schall is an experienced rowing coach and NASM Certified Personal Trainer with a strong background in both competitive rowing and coaching. She began rowing at the University of Pittsburgh, where she served as team captain for two years and earned a degree in nutrition and dietetics. As a coach, she led the Pitt Varsity Women to multiple medals at ACRA Nationals and was named Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year in her second year. She also coached at Central Catholic High School and led the sculling program at Steel City Rowing Club.

After training with Vesper’s U23 program and competing independently in the single, Schall joined the ARION Elite Program, where she trained under Olympic coach Eric Catalano and alongside Team USA athletes.

Following an injury that ended her competitive career, Schall gained NCAA Division I coaching experience at the University of Massachusetts. She later returned to Saratoga as Head Coach of the Varsity Girls team, earning medals at national championships in her first year.

In 2023, Schall transitioned to coaching adults, discovering a passion for helping them reach their full potential. She is excited to continue inspiring and supporting the adult rowing community. When she’s not coaching, she helps deliver baby horses at a racehorse breeding farm in Saratoga.

Margot Zalkind

Topic: Rowing Alone

Margot Zalkind has been involved in the sport of rowing, as both an athlete and advocate, for over 30 years. She began her rowing journey at Norwalk River Rowing Club in Connecticut and went on to help found the Saugatuck Rowing Club, where she served as its first President.

Zalkind raced competitively for many years with Potomac Boat Club in Washington, D.C., earning multiple medals at USRowing’s Masters Nationals, the Nike World Masters Games, and the Head of the Charles Regatta, among other prestigious events.

Since 1999, she has served as Chair of the USRowing Safety Committee. In this role, she has contributed to the development of the Trailer Driving Safety Video and led numerous workshops on Trailer Driving, Safe Coxing, and Safe Launch Driving. She now supports USRowing as a Special Projects Coordinator, continuing to drive safety and education initiatives within the sport.

Margot is also a published co-author of Water Ready with Mike Davenport and The Coxswain Encyclopedia: From Racks to Racing.

Join these experts on Saturday, May 17, 2025. 

Individual Conference Pass: This pass will get you full access to all live sessions within the conference and their recordings. This pass is intended for one person to have access to the conference. Cost is $99/per person.  Link to Regatta Central is HERE.

Boathouse Pass: This pass is intended for a boathouse to gain access to the conference and will get attendees full access to all live sessions within the conference and their recordings.. After registering for this pass, account holders should email stephanie.fryer@usrowing.org with an excel spreadsheet of members names and email addresses that should have access to the content. Cost is $499 (up to 20 people).  Registration Link is HERE.