Virtual Forum: Monitoring Hormones in Female Athletes: Best Practices for Designing and Interpreting the Research

Sport science findings on female participants are often limited by how a study classifies participants’ ovarian hormone status (e.g., Are they actively menstruating? Taking hormonal birth control? Using an intrauterine device?) This forum will outline practical tools and resources to support research involving female participants and help you interpret sport science findings with regards to hormonal status. Whether you are designing a study or assessing the validity of research findings, we invite you to join our discussion and bring your questions! *Forum Format* Dr. Ella Smith will begin the event with a brief introduction to her recently published framework and tools to design and implement a study that appropriately classifies and controls ovarian hormone status. Afterwards, an open discussion, seeded by questions from the audience, will dive deeper into the nuances of this approach and how it can be applied to design and assess research studies and their findings. *Bio* Dr. Ella Smith is a Sports Physiologist at the South Australian Sports Institute (SASI). She has authored over 20 peer‑reviewed publications, contributing to the evidence base in female‑specific physiology, including research on hormonal fluctuations, energy availability and competition performance. Dr. Smith completed her PhD with Louise Burke’s group at Australian Catholic University (Melbourne, Australia), alongside international collaborators including Dr. Kathryn Ackerman, Dr. Trent Stellingwerff, Prof. Kirsty Elliott‑Sale and Dr. Rachel Harris. Following her PhD, Dr. Smith transitioned into an applied role at SASI, where she delivers physiological testing and data‑driven monitoring to guide training and recovery in high‑performance environments. She continues to advance her expertise in female athlete health by translating emerging evidence directly into practice.