Donna Peterson

Donna J. Peterson is an extension professor and assistant director of the School of Human Sciences at Mississippi State University (MSU). She is also the program leader for MSU extension program and staff development.

Currently, Peterson teaches graduate-level courses in program planning and program evaluation. Her evaluation work focuses on designing and carrying out evaluations, analyzing evaluation data, reporting findings, and making recommendations for future program implementation for 4-H, Cooperative Extension, and other nonformal education programs. Throughout her 20-year evaluation career, she has served as an evaluator and/or investigator on various CDC-, NIH-, NSF-, NOAA-, and USDA-funded grants. She provides staff development for MSU Extension professionals on program planning and evaluation and contributes to Extension’s accountability reporting to the state legislature, the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, and USDA-NIFA.

Prior to her time at MSU, Peterson worked in Arizona Cooperative Extension on grant-funded projects on positive youth development and building program evaluation capacity and at the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Injury Research Center on community-based educational programs focused on fall prevention for older adults and youth and community violence prevention.

Ph.D. in Family and Consumer Sciences (Family Studies), University of Arizona, 1998

M.S. in Family and Consumer Sciences (Family Studies), University of Arizona, 1994

B.A. in Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1991