Tom Peterson

Thomas Peterson, PhD, mainly grew up in Chicago but attended Bethany College in Kansas, a small liberal arts school. He then served four years in the United States Air Force as a medic-surgical specialist. Upon his discharge in 1973, Dr. Peterson used his GI Bill educational benefits to attend graduate school at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, where he obtained his PhD in Medical Physiology. This was followed by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in Physiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which he completed in 1979. He was then hired for his current faculty position at Texas A&M College of Medicine. After 40 years at the Bryan-College Station campus, Dr. Peterson moved to Houston in 2019 and became part of the School of Engineering Medicine.
Dr. Peterson’s career at A&M has consisted of two phases, the first of which was mainly research and some teaching. His research area during those years focused on investigating neural and humoral control of cardiovascular and renal function and how this might apply to disorders such as hypertension and heart failure.
In 2001, his interest in areas such as course and curriculum development, medical school admissions, faculty governance and other areas increased to the level where he decided to no longer conduct biomedical research and devoted all his effort to teaching and service. He was appointed at that time to a new administrative position of Co-Director of Medical Education and also began serving as Chair of the Admissions Committee (for 18 years), and in leadership positions on the Student Promotions Committee, the Curriculum Study Group, and Dean’s Committee on Curriculum. He also served a term as Speaker of the A&M Health Science Center Faculty Senate. Additionally, Dr. Peterson served for 29 years as Faculty Advisor to the medical student chapter of the Christian Medical Association, where he served as Faculty Trip Leader for 20 international medical missions trips for students and physicians to Mexico, Uganda and Peru.