Sabina Foisor

Sabina Foisor has been a chess dynamo since starting around age 4. She comes from a chess family: Her parents, WGM Cristina-Adela Foisor and IM Ovidiu-Doru Foisor represented Romania in numerous international events, and her younger sister, Mihaela-Veronica, is a WIM. While her parents have been her biggest chess influence, she says her favorite players are Garry Kasparov and the late Bobby Fischer. Like many players, she has traveled the globe playing in tournaments, and she has participated in each of the past five U.S. Women's Championships (2009-2013). Her main goal in chess is to become one of the top 20 women players in the world.

One of her biggest challenges was moving to the U.S. in 2008 to attend at University of Maryland at Baltimore County, where studied psychology, modern language and linguistics. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in intercultural communications (INCC).

When not playing or training for chess, she likes to travel, read books, watch movies and hang out with friends. "Of course I can manage to balance chess with other things," she says. She has many heroes outside of chess, including her family, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Sigmund Freud. After listing those three she added, "I will stop here because the list would be too large."