Kierra Peak’s introduction to UNC-Chapel Hill was attending Project Uplift as a rising high school senior.
“I think I want to go here,” she thought after her first time on campus.
A year later, she made Carolina home and enjoyed her undergraduate experience, majoring in anthropology. After receiving a master’s degree from Lenoir-Rhyne University, Peak returned to Chapel Hill to pursue a doctorate in occupational science at the UNC School of Medicine.
The native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, will become a double Tar Heel when she receives her doctoral degree this month.
The root of occupational science, Peak ’14, ’25 (PhD) said, is “caring about how people can engage in their lives to the fullest.” As a doctoral student, she continued to explore that mission through her research, teaching and service.
One of The Graduate School’s Royster Fellows, she completed a dissertation on how youth activism shapes the identities of young people and impacts their well-being, sometimes negatively. Peak sought to answer the question “How can we better serve students who are doing this work?”