Peter is an Associate Professor at the Medical University of Vienna and a faculty member at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. Previously, he conducted research at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis IIASA in Laxenburg, at the European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management in Stuttgart, and at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He completed his PhD in Natural Sciences at the University of Vienna in 2010 and habilitated in Computational Science in 2018.
Peter has developed predictive and stress test models for the spread of disease, how healthcare systems can cope with changes in staffing levels, and how disruptive events can affect economic and financial markets and critical infrastructure, developed a new statistical test to detect election fraud, and led one of the most influential studies to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the Corona pandemic (ranked 36th of all scientific publications published in 2020 according to Altmetric). Since 2008, he has authored about 90 scientific publications and a textbook on the theory of complex systems (together with Stefan Thurner and Rudolf Hanel). He has written several commentaries in journals such as the Lancet or BMJ, was a member of the Supreme Medical Council, is regularly asked to give keynotes and his work has attracted widespread media interest, including in Nature, Forbes and Al Jazeera. In 2022, he was named Austrian Scientist of the Year and received the Paul Watzlawick Ring of Honor in 2021.
