Ms. Peden is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Director for the Center for Public Health Practice and Research at the Jiann Ping Hsu College of Public Health (JPHCOPH). She holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences from James Madison University and a Master of Public Health from JPHCOPH.

Ms. Peden has been with the college since 2011 and acting at the Associate Director for the Center for Public Health Practice and Research (CPHPR) since 2021. She focuses on connecting JPHCOPH with the Georgia public health and rural healthcare practice community and facilitating practice-based research and technical assistance through grants and service contracts. Over the past 11 years, she has worked with the Center to bring in over 5 million dollars in external grant and contract funding. Ms. Peden has served as either the project or grant manager for over 80 different projects from a variety of funding sources. She excels at budget management as well as internal and external report development. Additionally, she is an active GPHA member, Delta Omega member, and currently serves on the University Calendar Committee. Ms. Peden’s research interests are rural health, health services and policies, public health systems and services, and national public health accreditation.