As a former humanities graduate student, Peter specialized in critical theory, print and visual culture, and contemporary U.S. cultural politics, particularly in the context of urban subcultural formations. His work in public health and social work now centers on substance use/harm reduction, the U.S. drug policy environment, and finding ways to implement trauma-focused care in institutional settings as a way to address addiction, mass incarceration, and other corrosive downstream crises associated with exposure to early life toxic stress