Peter L. Levin was appointed Senior Advisor to the Secretary and CTO in May 2009. His primary role is to lead Veteran health and benefit service innovations. He is the executive sponsor of the Blue Button personal health record, of the Fast Track electronic claims processing system, of the electronic record modernization initiative, the open source custodial agent, and of the VA's Open Government initiatives all of which have been institutionalized by the agency as part of its ongoing transformation.
Levin was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator (G.H.W. Bush) a White House Fellow (Clinton), and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (TU Darmstadt). He is the co-author of more than 50 articles ranging from global positioning and cybersecurity to computer modeling and simulations; he is also a co-author of the technology chapter of the 1997 Biennial Presidential Report to Congress on Science and Technology. Just before joining the Obama administration, he co-founded and led an award-winning semiconductor design software firm, was a venture partner at Dusseldorf-based venture firm Ventizz Capital Partners, and was an executive director of Astaro A.G.
Levin studied in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and he subsequently enjoyed post-doctoral training at the Technical University of Munich. His first academic appointment was at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and he was later the associate dean for research in the College of Engineering at Boston University. He is a Consulting Professor of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Stanford University.