Peter triple majored at Virginia Tech, with majors in Wood Material Science, Biochemistry, and Chemistry, along with a minor in Green Engineering, before getting his PhD at the University of Minnesota in Bioproducts & Biosystems Science, Engineering, and Management. His work on the US food system looks to synthesize national, regional, local, and hyper-local data on agricultural inputs, outputs, and impacts to generate a more complete picture of the US food system than previously envisioned. He loves the smell of ammonia fertilizer and is an avid reader of historical non-fiction.