As a Senior Program Associate for WestEd's Regional Educational Laboratory West (REL West) and Southwest Comprehensive Center (SWCC), Mary Peterson provides technical assistance to state departments of education.

Through her work with the SWCC, Peterson helps state education agencies (SEAs) throughout the Southwest implement provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. She helped the California Department of Education develop and pilot California's District Assistance and Intervention Teams project. In addition, she has worked with SEA staff in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico to design and implement their respective statewide systems of support for schools and districts.

She also serves as liaison to the State of Nevada for REL West.

Prior to joining WestEd in 2006, Peterson was Statewide Director of Teacher Education, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Dean of Faculty at Sierra Nevada College. From 1994 to 2000, she served as Nevada's Superintendent of Public Instruction. During her tenure, the state developed and implemented statewide academic content standards, as well as a more comprehensive assessment and accountability system. Previously, she held other leadership positions in the Nevada Department of Education, including Deputy for Instructional, Research, and Evaluative Services, and Statewide Director of Title I.

Peterson has served on the Board of Directors of the Council of Chief State School Officers and WestEd. She also was a State Commissioner to the Education Commission of the States. She began her career teaching junior and senior high school English, and was principal of a small, private K-8 school in rural Idaho. In 1997 and 2003, Peterson was awarded the Nevada Women's Fund Woman of Achievement Award, and in 1996 the Outstanding Woman Award by the Nevada Attorney General's Office.

Peterson received a BA in English from Carleton College and an MA in teaching from Duke University. Her education also includes doctoral studies in cultural foundations of education/educational administration from the University of Utah, where she was inducted into the graduate Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.