Dr. Petersen is professor and former Chief Health Officer, senior associate vice president, USF Health, and dean, College of Public Health at the University of South Florida (USF). She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in maternal and child health from The Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has held senior leadership positions at the Minnesota Department of Health and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Public Health and in several national organizations in academic public health including the National Board of Public Health Examiners, the Council on Education for Public Health, and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. Locally she serves on the advisory board of the Hillsborough County Health Care Plan and the Institute for Research in the Arts at USF and is immediate-past chair of the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg.
She has been honored for her work by the American Public Health Association, the Delta Omega National Public Health Honor Society, the National Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. In 2011 she was presented the Distinguished Alumna Award by The Johns Hopkins University and in 2023 she was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
