professor in 1990. Peterson held other miscellaneous positions around this time; he became the head of the Thermal and Fluid Sciences Division in 1989, was the Halliburton Professor of Engineering in 1990–1991, the Tenneco Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1991–2000, and was the head of the Mechanical Engineering department from 1993 to 1996. From August 1993 to September 1994, Peterson also worked for the National Science Foundation as the program director for their Thermal Transport and Thermal Processing Program. In 1996, Peterson was appointed Texas A&M's executive associate dean of Engineering and also served as the Associate vice chancellor for the Texas A&M University System. From July 2000 until June 2006, Peterson was the provost at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He was then the chancellor at the University of Colorado at Boulder from July 2006 until his departure for Georgia Tech in 2009. During Peterson's first year as president, Georgia Tech launched the InVenture Prize, an annual invention competition for undergraduate students to showcase innovative solutions to a panel of judges. The competition, which awards $20,000 and free U.S. patent filing to the student winner, airs live on Georgia Public Broadcasting. During Peterson's tenure InVenture Prize spawned three new versions including a version for K-12 students across the state of Georgia and the ACC InVenture Prize which pits student inventors from Atlantic Coast Conference Colleges head-to-head. During Peterson's tenure in 2010, Georgia Tech became the first American college in nearly a decade to be accepted into the American Association of Universities (AAU), largely seen as an affirmation of the Institute's status as one of America's top research institutions. The AAU had studied Georgia Tech's accolades for several years including the amount of federal grants and the number of faculty awards and research citations. While president at Georgia Tech, he was accused of a lack of due process by students. This resulted in lawsuits that resulted in students who were accused of sexual misconduct being reinstated and winning settlements. After criticism led by former Georgia state lawmaker Earl Ehrhart, Tech withdrew a 47 million dollar request to fund a renovation project of Institute's library complex. Along with those allegations, he was accused of a wrongful termination, and therefore sued by Dr. Joy Laskar, and several court proceedings followed with Laskar winning the case. Georgia Tech rapidly expanded its global footprint in the decade of Peterson's term as president.