Emilie is our Executive Director and Head Coach, and balances her JLRC work while also coaching at a local university, and serves as the Regatta Director for the Lake Wheeler Invitational. Emilie has extensive coaching experience at four collegiate programs and five non-profit rowing clubs. She has been a rowing coach for over a decade and is Level II certified by US Rowing.

Emilie is a master of logistical planning and has used those skills to run programing, coordinate teams, and run regattas. Emilie was a competitive collegiate rower, an honors student, and has degrees in Packaging (engineering) as well as a Masters of Arts in Sports Coaching. If you’re thinking we can’t believe how lucky we are to have Emilie as our Executive Director and Head Coach, we agree.

Lauren began her rowing career in the winter of 2019 with North Carolina Rowing Center in Summerfield, NC. She went on to qualify for and compete at Youth Nationals in the spring of 2021 in the Women’s 2x race. Her head coach knew that although she had decided to step away from competing in college, she would still want to be part of the rowing community. Once she found out she got accepted into NCSU, he suggested she take a coaching position that had opened up at JLRC. In the Spring of 2022, she joined on as an assistant coach and has been with us ever since. Her passion for teaching and coaching continues to be fueled by the drive and enthusiasm of JLRC’s athletes. She hopes to take what she has learned from coaching and implement it into her time at Duke as an Occupational Therapy Doctorate student.

Nate joined JLRC in the fall of 2024 with a background as a lightweight rower. He began his rowing career by walking on to the Dartmouth Lightweight Rowing team. He competed for the team for four years, barring COVID interruptions. He then spent a year coaching strength and conditioning for his hometown of New Orleans. He is currently studying to obtain his PhD in Classical Archaeology at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Caroline started rowing in 2017 with Gryphon Crew (formerly REACH Rowing) through L&N STEM Academy. Upon graduating, Caroline served as their Learn-To-Row coach for the summers of 2021 & 2022, coaching for them during breaks from university. She joined the University of Vermont rowing team in 2021 and served as their equipment manager. With UVM, Caroline both raced and coxed boats at club nationals in Tennessee (ACRAs). She graduated from UVM in 2024, earning a BA in Environmental Studies with a concentration in sustainable agriculture. Caroline spent her final semester of university in Costa Rica studying sustainable development on a permaculture farm.