(Term Ends: 2026)
Dr. Lesley Cottrell is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at West Virginia University’s School of Medicine. Originally from Michigan and raised near Shady Spring, West Virginia, Dr. Cottrell earned her B.A. in Psychology from WVU in 1994, a master’s degree in child clinical psychology from Marshall University in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from WVU in 2001. She completed her post-doctoral training with support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), focusing on adolescent risk decision-making and parental influences.
Since joining the WVU faculty, Dr. Cottrell has fostered collaborative research efforts across the Department of Pediatrics, the School of Public Health and WVU’s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. Her research centers on child and adolescent health, family influences and public health challenges such as obesity, substance use, adolescent pregnancy and trauma resiliency. Her work has contributed to parent and adolescent risk-reduction programs and teacher training resources, implemented both nationally and internationally in The Bahamas, Namibia and Vietnam, with funding from NIH, HRSA, CDC and SAMSHA. To date, she has published over 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts, presented at 90 conferences and contributed six book chapters.
Since 2015, Dr. Cottrell has directed the WVU Center for Excellence in Disabilities (CED), West Virginia’s only center of its kind, providing services, training and research for individuals with disabilities and their families. She has mentored 89 undergraduate, graduate and professional trainees, guiding them through significant academic milestones.
Dr. Cottrell co-developed WVU’s Country Roads Program, a transitional program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and represents the University in state and national disability networks. She teaches courses for medical and public health students and has been active in faculty governance since 2002, chairing several senate committees, serving as Faculty Senate Chair in 2010- 2011 and representing the faculty on the WVU Board of Governors. Additionally, she chairs the WVU Institutional Review Board (IRB) Gold Board and previously served as Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pediatrics from 2009 to 2019.