Early on
In high school, Pete was both the class nerd and class clown. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from M.I.T. where his classmates voted him most likely to appear in a mug shot wearing a pocket protector. Pete was a post-doctoral researcher at IBM, NASA, and the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Switzerland where he learned important skills like how to pronounce Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule. He started doing stand-up comedy and researching the application of humor to improve technical education, innovation, and communication during his three decade stint on the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Current
In 2023, Pete moved to Tuscaloosa AL to create the new Engineering Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Alabama. Here he continues his research in, and application of the use of humor to catalyze technical and entrepreneurial innovation, education, and communication.