Peter L. Levin

Adjunct Senior Fellow

  • Press: comms@cnas.org

Peter L. Levin is the co-founder and CEO of Amida Technology Solutions, an information technology firm that focuses on data interoperability, exchange, governance, and security.

From May 2009 until March 2013 he was Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs. At VA he co-created and led the inter-agency deployment of the Blue Button personal health record, as well as the Virtual Regional Office (the platform of VA’s disability claims management system), and the consolidated electronic health record portal with the Department of Defense (now known as the Joint Legacy Viewer). He also led the implementation of VA’s first social media outreach, their employee innovation and industry competitions, and their inaugural Presidential Innovation Fellows initiative.

Prior to joining the Obama Administration, he was a director of the open-source network security company Astaro (based in Karlsruhe, acquired by Sophos), the lead investor and board member of the electronic design automation (EDA) company NeoLinear (acquired by Cadence), and co-founder of the GPS-based cybersecurity company Zanio (acquired by Boeing). He was co-founding CEO of DAFCA, an EDA company focused on semiconductor test, a venture partner of Ventizz Capital Partners in Dusseldorf, a general partner of Techno Venture Management in Munich and Boston, and a director of Conversa Health (acquired by AmWell in 2021). He currently serves on the board of Platinum Technologies.

Peter was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator during the first Bush administration, a Clinton White House Fellow in the Office of Management and Budget, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in the Department Mathematical Physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and a winner of an NIST Advanced Technology Program award. He is the co-author of more than 90 articles ranging from satellite navigation and cybersecurity to computer simulations and semiconductor test. He holds patents in chip design and GPS-based authentication. He has published in IEEE journals, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, politico.com, The Hill, The Baltimore Sun, Quillette, and the White House website.

Peter earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and was a DAAD Visiting Scientist in the High Voltage Laboratory at the Technical University of Munich. He began his career at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, was associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Engineering at Boston University, was a consulting professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, and was a visiting fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Innovation and Impact at Georgetown University. His academic research focused on electromagnetic and acoustic field theory, and high-performance computing; he was tenured at WPI and BU. He is currently an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a strategic advisor to the Partnership for Public Service.

Support CNAS