Kurt Petersen (inventor)
Kurt E. Petersen (born February 13, 1948) is an American inventor and entrepreneur. He is known primarily for his work on microelectromechanical systems. Petersen was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering in 2001. Biography Petersen received his BS degree cum laude in Electrical Engineering from The University of California at Berkeley in 1970. In 1975, he received a PhD degree in EE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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). This paper is a highly referenced work in the field of micromachining and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS); it is considered to have helped establish MEMS as its own branch of technology. As of September 2017, Google Scholar reported 3,795 citations. Career 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. In 1996, he co-founded Cepheid, a company which uses microfluidic technology for rapid PCR detection. Dr. Petersen also co-founded SiTime