N. Peter Whitehead is a RAND Senior Engineer and Professor of Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He is currently co-leading a project on the cost benefit analysis of digital engineering for the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and a project on rapid software development for the Army G2. His current projects also include supply chain risk management in space systems, Supply Chain Interdependence and Geopolitical Vulnerability: The Case of Taiwan and High-End Semiconductors, a DARPA project on social polling and predictive analysis, and FEMA COVID public assistance expense analyses. Peter came to RAND from MITRE where he worked with multiple sponsors and led a research program that leveraged data analytics and artificial intelligence in scheduling veterans’ health resources. Prior to MITRE, he served as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the AAAS at NSF and at OSTP in the White House. Peter’s Ph.D. dissertation (2014) developed a supervised learning AI approach to classify the quality of critical thinking in a systems approach. His other work experience includes: Program Manager at Lockheed Martin Corporation, Foreign Service Officer serving in 60 countries, Director of R&D at ViaSystems (Lucent Bell Labs spin-off), Consultant to the Army (G2), President of a systems analysis consulting firm, PM and engineer at Westinghouse Defense and at ITT Electro Optics Product Division. Research interests include the ethics and axiological aspects of AI and critical thinking in systems analysis. Peter is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, served as Vice Chair of the IEEE-USA Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems Policy and was selected as Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE Systems Council. He served as the Editor of International Abstracts in Operations Research (2011-2018), (IFORS), and is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Systems Journal and Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Peter earned an M.E. in electrical engineering, an M.E. in systems engineering, and a Doctor of Philosophy in systems and
information engineering from the University of Virginia. He earned a BS in physics and mathematics and a BA in French from Washington and Lee University with honors. He is a member of Omega Rho, the Operations Research Academic Honor Society.