Center for Women and Gender gives out awards

When Terry Peak was told she would be the recipient of The Center for Women and Gender’s lifetime achievement award, she wasn’t even aware that she had been nominated for it.

She even was skeptical as to if she deserved it.

“After a while I asked the Women and Gender people, ‘Are you sure that I am the right person for this?” Peak said.

She looked at the criterion and thought the only requirement she met was the age requirement of 65, a recent milestone for Peak.

“I had just turned 65, so now I am publicly out as being 65, so for me that was the primary response,” she said.

However Stephanie Bagnell, the program coordinator for the Center for Women and Gender, said in an email to The Utah Statesman that Peak’s qualifications exceeded the age requirement.

“Dr. Peak’s work both at the college and within the community was amazing,” she said. “Terry served a key role to bring the USU master of social work program and has served on the IRB for research involving ‘human subjects.’ Terry received several nominations from students as well as peers who have been touched by her leadership and courage.”

Peak, who is the program director for the social work department at Utah State, also worked with the Utah Division of Aging and Adult Services to improve aging men’s health. Peak is currently contributing to a program study sponsored by the State of Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health.

Peak is especially proud of her work with family caregiving.

The award, which was presented to Peak on March 3, was not the only award that The Center for Women and Gender has given out this year. In the same ceremony the center awarded Sanghamitra Roy, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with the Early Career Award.

“I was deeply honored to be chosen for this award,” said Roy in an email to the Statesman. “Also this award has a great sentimental value for me as it reinforces the critical need for more females to be involved in the field of engineering.”

Bagnell said that Roy’s involvement with the electrical and computer engineering department was part of the reason the center chose her for the award.

“This discipline is one of the many who have trouble attracting women,” she said. “Her work in this area alone has created openings to bring more women into this field.”

Roy’s research focuses on ways to improve energy efficiency of computers.

Roy will be presenting on April 11 at Engineering Extravaganza, an event aimed to teach female high school students in Northern Utah about engineering.

One of Roy’s favorite projects has been establishing the Bridge Lab at USU with her colleague Koushik Chakrabort.

The Early Career Award, which has been given out once a year since 2011, is given to someone who is in the first 12 years of her professional career and the Lifetime Achievement Award, which has been given out since 1986, goes to a woman who is 65 years old or more.

While both of these awards are intended to be on the opposite ends of the career spectrum, neither woman is done with her work, something that Peak reflected on when she received the award.

“The other thing was it is a lifetime-achievement award. (I thought) ‘Oh, is my lifetime over? Are these all of the achievements that I am going to get?’ Really there was a lot of personal reflection about what my lifetime has achieved,” Peak said. “I don’t think my lifetime achievements are over. I think that we’re actively pursuing other exciting things in our program.”

— dahdahjm@gmail.com