Amanda Moors (Fed)

Amanda began her career with NIST in 2005 and now serves as the Program Coordinator of the NIST Biorepository in the Chemical Sciences Division. Amanda oversees the day-to-day operations inside of the NIST Biorepository ensuring safety measures are in place and followed in the facility, while maintaining a bank of monitored liquid nitrogen vapor phase and mechanical freezers.

Amanda coordinates with collection partners and collaborators around the country to collect, process, and archive marine mammal tissues for real-time and retrospective analysis into the National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank (NMMTB). The NMMTB was designed as a resource of tissue samples that could be used for chemical analysis to determine exposure to contaminants and retrospective research on exposure history of populations to emerging contaminants.

Amanda also leads NIST marine mammal health assessment efforts for bottlenose dolphins (T. truncatus) and beluga whales (D. leucas). She collaborates with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), the Chicago Zoological Society's Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP), the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF), the Alaska SeaLife Center, and other partner agencies to implement standardized collection procedures, efficiently transport & ship samples to researcher, and systematically archive samples from health assessments. Amanda was instrumental in NIST’s effort to collect, archive, and maintain samples and chain-of-custody procedures during the Deep Water Horizon oil spill.

Amanda works with other NIST colleagues to collect, archive, and maintain precious samples including seabirds, sea turtles, mussels, fish, oysters, human tissue and blood serum, human food specimens, and other sample types from the environment.  

Additionally, Amanda served as Co-Chair for the 2021 International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) annual meeting, and has also served on the ISBER Organizing Advisory Committee, ISBER Scientific Program Committee, and the ISBER Education and Training Committee for many years.

Prior to coming to NIST, Amanda worked at a regional museum in Texas, and at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida.

Professional Awards & Recognition

• United States Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Award for Superior Federal Service: For Developing a Chain-of-Custody Biorepository Program to Support NOAA's Natural Resources Damage Assessment of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 2012

Membership and Professional Activities

• International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER), 2009-2021