Mark Peterson received his B.A. in Asian Studies and Anthropology from Brigham Young University in 1971. He received his M.A. in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1987, both from Harvard University in the field of East Asian Languages and Civilization. Prior to coming to BYU in 1984 he was the director of the Fulbright program in Korea from 1978 to 1983. He also served as the President of the Korea Pusan Mission from 1987 to 1990. He has been the coordinator of the Asian Studies Program and was the director of the undergraduate programs in the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. He is currently the head of the Korean section of the department.

Dr. Peterson is a member of the Association for Asian Studies, where he is the chair of the Korean Studies Committee; he is also the book review editor for the Journal of Asian Studies for Korean Studies books. He is also a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, the International Association for Korean Language Education, the International Korean Literature Association, and the American Association of Korean Teachers.

Recent Publications

• Coverage of Korea in American Text Books, Research Commissioned by the Korean Cultural Center of New York, 1994.
• The Mid-Yi Dynasty Confucian Transformation of the Korean Family and Lineage, Dissertaion - Harvard, 1987.
• Korean Adoption and Inheritance: Case Studies in the Creation of a Classic Confucian Society, Cornell East Asia Series, (awarded the Yeonnam Prize for best book on Korea that year), 1996.
• Korean Women: View from the Inner Room, ed. by Laurel Kendall and Mark Peterson, New Haven: East Rock Press, 1984.
• "American Officials and the Kwangju Uprising," in The Kwangju Uprising, ed. by Donald Clark, Boulder: Westview Press, 1987.
• "The King Sejong Shillok," in King Sejong, Light of the Fifteenth Century, ed. by Young-gi Kim-Renaud, ICLK/George Washington Unversity Press, 1992.