Besides directing the activities of the CR Core, Mr. Mitchell is a liaison with the HIV/AIDS community. In this capacity, he is the former Community Co-Chair to Connecticut's HIV Prevention Community Planning Group, the Co-Chair of the Strategic Planning and Assessment Committee for the Ryan White Planning Council for New Haven and Fairfield County, a member of the New Haven Mayor's Task Force on AIDS, and Co-Chair of the AIDS LIFE (Legislative Initiative and Funding Effort) Campaign. Mr. Mitchell received a BA in Political Science and Psychology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Prior to coming to CIRA, he was a Sexuality Educator/Trainer for Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, an administrator for the Stonewall Community Foundation in New York City, and the Gay Youth Educator for AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati. In 1999 Mr. Mitchell received the "Sexuality Educator of the Year" award from the CT Chapter of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). In his volunteer time, Mr. Mitchell is the Co-Chair of the Connecticut chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a member of the GLSEN National Advisory Council, a National Trainer for GLSEN's Trainer of Trainers Initiative, and a trainer for the Anti-Defamation League's A World of Difference training institute. Leif has compiled, edited and published a resource module for educators, Tackling LGBT Issues in School, which has been distributed internationally. Leif has a chapter in Out on Fraternity Row: Personal Accounts of Being Gay in a College Fraternity that captures his experience as an out member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. Mr. Mitchell lives in New Haven with his partner, Will, whom he had a civil union with on October 14, 2006.