David Peak is Professor of Physics at

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...

. His current research focuses on the interdisciplinary field of

complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generall ...

and computation in biological phenomena, motivated by the similarities between

stomata In botany, a stoma (from Greek ''στόμα'', "mouth", plural "stomata"), also called a stomate (plural "stomates"), is a pore found in the epidermis of leaves, stems, and other organs, that controls the rate of gas exchange. The pore is bor ...

and

cellular automata A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...

. Peak was one founder of the National Council on Undergraduate Research and is on the governing board (formerly the Chair) of the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research. Peak has won multiple Utah State awards for teaching, faculty advising, and research mentoring at USU and was a recipient of an

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

Prize for Research Done with Undergraduates. Of the sixteen courses he has taught at USU, ten were created by him. Peak has been a long-time advisor to the USU chapter of the Society of Physics of Students and formerly to the Microgravity Research Team. The USU chapter of SPS was an Outstanding Chapter three years in a row in the 2000s. The USU Microgravity Research Team has sent more student experiments into space than any other university. He has mentored one

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

(Lara Anderson, 2004) and seven recipients of the

Goldwater Scholarship The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by the United States Congress in 1986 in honor of former United States Senator and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Its goal is to provide a contin ...

Sources

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peak, David Utah State University faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people)