Director, Sponsored Programs Assurance and Research Compliance (SPARC)
Assistant: Lisa McLamb
Vanessa L. Peoples leads the Sponsored Programs Assurance and Research Compliance team which conducts horizontal assurance reviews aimed at assessing risk and evaluating design effectiveness and efficiency for programs and processes that support sponsored programs administration and clinical research across Duke’s research enterprise.
Vanessa has 21 years of experience in higher education. Prior to coming to Duke in 2016, she held various leadership roles in student financials and research administration at the University of Delaware and University of North Carolina (UNC). As the Deputy Director at UNC, she was responsible for both pre- and post- award financial administration functions with oversight of over $900 million in annual sponsored program expenditures. Vanessa earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Delaware (1992) and a Master in Business Administration from North Carolina Central University (1995). She is also a certified internal auditor (CIA).