She was educated at the Friends' School, Hobart where her father Peter was a rowing coach and she took up the sport at age fourteen.
[2] Volker was selected to represent Tasmania in the 2015 senior women's eight contesting the Queen's Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships.
[5] Volker was a member of the Australian women's eight who initially missed qualification for the 2016 Rio Olympics but received a late call up following the Russian drug scandal.
WADA had discovered Russian state sponsored drug testing violations and the IOC acted to protect clean athletes and set strict entry guidelines for Russian athletes resulting in most of their rowers and nearly all of their crews being withdrawn from the Olympic regatta.
The crew had dispersed two months earlier after their failure to qualify but reconvened, travelled at the last minute to Rio and borrowed a shell.