Staff Appreciation: Missy DeVito of the Research Review Committee
Missy DeVito serves as Research Project Coordinator for the Department of Psychiatry Research Review Committee (RRC), the internal grant review committee that helps to ensure Departmental research proposals meet the highest scientific and ethical standards. We would like to express gratitude for Missy’s invaluable contributions to the RRC.
Missy coordinates the submissions, reviews, and approvals of all grant proposals for the RRC and the K-award Review Program. This work involves numerous tasks including disseminating review requests, working with reviewers, sending reviews to the committee chair, summarizing comments, and securing final approval from the Department chair.
“In someone else’s hands, each of these steps could take days, which, when there is a tight grant deadline, could make the difference between a researcher getting and digesting a research review, or not. Missy is extremely skilled at ensuring the process keeps moving. She also exercises excellent judgment and is knowledgeable about the RRC institutional history,” said David Brent, MD (Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Epidemiology, and Clinical and Translational Science and Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies). “The Research Review Committee is vital to the Department’s research mission, and Missy is vital to the RRC.”
“Missy is also very good-natured and even keeled; during the hectic last moments of grants being submitted, she stays calm and makes sure everything runs smoothly. She is a real asset to the Department’s research mission,” says Judy Cameron, PhD (co-chair of the RRC, Professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral & Community Health Sciences, Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Medicine, and Clinical and Translation Science).