Rosie Peterson joined UT Dallas in 2004 after nearly 22 years of professional experience serving disabled individuals and those in medically underserved areas. From 2004-2008, she worked as the assistant director of the UT Dallas Sickle Cell Research Center. She joined the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as the director of Institutional Diversity Initiatives (now Employee Equity Initiatives) in May 2008.

Over her career, Peterson has written grant proposals, individual and collaborative, to fund more than $4 million in project activities related to sickle cell disease and organizational capacity building.

In her ODEI role, she has been responsible for seeking out, participating in, and encouraging grant writing and fund development; implementing diversity communication projects, including a website and newsletter; and developing and implementing a diversity scorecard. Additionally, she serves as the point of contact for outreach to the African-American community on behalf of UT Dallas.

Peterson also assisted in developing diversity training and awareness seminars for staff as a UT Dallas Employee Resource Group founder. After her son's death in 2018, Rosie created the Douglas Peterson Endowment for students experiencing homelessness or needing emergency assistance while in school.

She has received numerous awards and recognition for her professional and volunteer work and was named one of the Profiles in Diversity Journal’s Women Worth Watching for 2014. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and is certified as a managed-care professional by the Academy for Healthcare Management.

This year, 2022 the Women Leading in Diversity (WLID) awards were presented by the Galerstein Gender Center (GGC). Previous years’ awards were presented by what is now called the Employee Equity Initiatives department and spearheaded by director Rosie Peterson, for whom the staff award has been renamed.

“Rosie has been pivotal to the success and progress of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, as well as the Women Leading in Diversity Awards “We felt it was essential to honor her legacy of advocacy in renaming the staff award the Rosie Peterson Legacy Leadership Award—it’s our small way of both giving Rosie her flowers and highlighting the significant contributions of incredible UT Dallas staff.”