In 2012, Peterson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for pioneering narrative ability, eyewitness memory, and early childhood amnesia.

As an undergraduate student at the University of Washington, Peterson was named a National Merit Finalist.

[2] Following her PhD in 1974, Peterson spent over a decade outside of academia before accepting a faculty position at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in 1991.

[3] In 2012, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for pioneering narrative ability, eyewitness memory, and early childhood amnesia.

In 2016, she received a grant to lead a five-year study titled "Assessing Interviews and Recall in Children."