Lesley Mitchell

Lesley Mitchell has been employed by Virginia Tech for 30 plus years, and has served in her present position for almost 20 years. She has devoted her entire professional career to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and is proud to serve our CALS faculty.  She received her bachelor of science in psychology from Radford University and completed her course work and research for her Master of Science in Experimental Psychology there as well.

Lesley is available to answer any questions you may have regarding processes, policies, and various other aspects of the proposal submission process as well as to assist with questions that you may have regarding on-going funded grants you may have. She is the initial contact within the college for grant-related questions and serves as a liaison between the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Office of Sponsored Programs.

She assists college faculty and staff with the following responsibilities:

• Reviews, interprets, and explains sponsor and university guidelines and procedures,
• Assists with downloading and completion of sponsor and university forms,
• Reviews completed proposals for accuracy and compliance with sponsor and university policies,
• Reviews proposal documents in Summit and completes Administrative Signatures for CALS, 
• Assists in preparing forms and reports for USDA/NIFA funded research and Extension grants, and advises faculty when annual and final reports are due for these grants,
• Searches for and disseminates funding opportunities.

In addition to sponsored programs activities she also assists with the following in CALS:

• Coordination of graduate student assistantships, graduate scholarship coordination, tuition remission requests, ICTAS Scholar Nominations, Deans’ Scholars, Outstanding Graduate Student and Mentor Nominations, and various other graduate program support at the college level.

You can contact Lesley for assistance with your efforts to submit proposals or any general question regarding sponsored project activity. Given the high volume of grant proposal submissions, timeliness is critical.

At the outset, provide Lesley with a copy of the sponsor’s guidelines/request for proposals so she can review them for terms and conditions, unique constraints, sponsor forms, indirect cost policy, cost sharing requirements, and budget restrictions.

If you need assistance with downloading and completing sponsor or university forms, contact Lesley at least five days prior to the deadline to give her adequate time to provide assistance. Submit final completed proposals to Lesley three to four days before the submission due date.   

Please visit OSP’s Proposal Submission Policy to insure timely submission of your proposals to OSP and the college.