A lifelong resident of Mercer County, Leigh Ann Peterson was appointed to the Board in September 2008 to fill the unexpired term of Hopewell Township representative Linda Mitchell. She won her first three-year term in April 2009.

She currently serves as Board vice president and also chairs the Board's Negotiations Committee and is a member of its Personnel Committee. Ms. Peterson, along with fellow board member Lisa Wolff, is co-liaison to the Hopewell Valley Education Foundation. She also is one of two Board delegates to the New Jersey School Boards Association.

Ms. Peterson has worked in the technology and financial industries for nearly 20 years and is currently a senior compliance officer for Barclays Capital Inc. in its Manhattan office. She worked in the same capacity for Lehman Brothers Inc., prior to its acquisition last fall by Barclays, enforcing trader compliance with state and federal regulations. A one-time product manager for Bloomberg L.P., Peterson also headed up testing of a trading system on the NASDAQ stock exchange for OptiMark Technologies Inc., a software company.

Born and raised in Ewing Township, she moved in 2005 to Maple Lane in Hopewell Township, just outside Pennington Borough, near Curlis Lake. She is a graduate of the Hun School in Princeton and currently serves on its alumni board of directors. In 2008 she received its Outstanding Alumna of the Year award.

Peterson is a former member of the alumni board of her alma mater, the University of Colorado at Boulder, serving as treasurer and in an at-large capacity. As treasurer, she oversaw a budget of $3 million.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Distributed Studies – Economics and French – from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Peterson and her husband, Michael Shine, have two sons, Aidan and Patrick. A former marathon runner, Peterson enjoys skiing, hiking and gardening.