Petersen was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering in 2001.

Petersen received his BS degree cum laude in Electrical Engineering from The University of California at Berkeley in 1970.

He established a micromachining research group at IBM from 1975 to 1982, during which he wrote the review paper “Silicon as a Mechanical Material,” published in the IEEE Proceedings (May 1982).

Since 1982, Dr. Petersen has co-founded six successful companies in MEMS technology, including Transensory Devices Inc. in 1982 and NovaSensor, a company which develops low-cost micromachined blood pressure sensors using bulk silicon micromachining technology, in 1985.

[6] In 2009, he co-founded Verreon and joined as Chief Technology Officer, helping to coordinate the company’s sale to Qualcomm in 2010.