WALTHAM, Mass. – Elif Soyer Sachs has been named as the new men's and women's fencing coach at Brandeis University, director of athletics Lauren Haynie has announced.

"Elif emerged as the top candidate from an extremely competitive pool," Haynie said. "She was the person best-equipped to lead our program to even greater levels of success."

Sachs is no stranger to Brandeis, having served as an assistant foil coach for the Judges from 2004 to 2008. During that time, she helped the Judges send three different individuals to the NCAA championships in foil six different times. That includes Will Friedman '09, a four-time qualifier, who was Brandeis's most recent foil All-American. Soyer also helped Brandeis earn back-to-back Northeast Fencing Conference six-weapon team titles in 2007 and 2008.

At the collegiate level, Sachs has been an assistant coach at Wellesley College from 2019 to 2021, while also serving as the head coach of the men's club team and an assistant coach of the women's varsity team at Tufts between 1998 and 2004. She helped seven Tufts fencers reach the NCAA championships in her time there.

Since 2008, Sachs has served as the general manager of Moe Fencing Club in Somerville, Massachusetts. She is responsible for the business side of a club boasting over 100 members, while overseeing the curriculum for weekly classes and running three annual camps. In her time at Moe, Sachs has coached national gold medalists in Division 1A men's foil, Y12 men' foil and Y10 women's foil, while coaching fencers that have US National rankings at the Junior, Cadet, Senior and Veterans levels, including fencers who successfully represented Team USA  in Cadet, Junior and Vet events.

Scholastically, she has also coached at the Commonwealth School in Boston, producing state epee champions and finalists in all three weapons.

In 2005, the Northeast Fencing Conference named its award for fencer with the best record who started fencing in college after Sachs.

Sachs received her BA in economics from Emory in 1988 and an MFA from Tufts in 1997. She is a renowned artist whose work has been reviewed by the Boston Globe.

Sachs succeeds Jennie Salmon, who left Brandeis in September to take over as head coach at her alma mater, Temple University. Brandeis finished as the second-highest NCAA Division III team at the 2022 NCAA National Collegiate Fencing championships thanks to All-America women's sabre fencer Maggie Shealy, a senior this year, and men's sabre qualifier Tony Escueta, a sophomore this year.