Peter is a reporter on the science desk at BuzzFeed News, where he aims to bring a scientific perspective to a wide variety of beats, including law enforcement, national security, and gun safety.

He got his start in journalism in 1989 as a reporter for Nature in London, fresh from a PhD in animal behavior. Later he worked as European correspondent for Science, news editor for New Scientist and chief news and features editor with Nature, before moving to California in 2005 to become New Scientist‘s San Francisco bureau chief.

Peter's investigations include reporting on genetic privacy, data falsification in stem cell research, and allegations of sexual misconduct by senior figures in the skeptic and atheist communities.

He also teaches data visualization and data journalism in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and investigative reporting in the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Peter's recent data-driven projects include the use of machine learning to identify surveillance aircraft from flight-tracking data, and text analysis of tweets sent by Donald Trump and all members of the US Congress over the first year of the Trump presidency.