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In college Barry Peterson studied physics instead of math, because physics was most like math but it meant only taking one year of German while people studying math had to take two years of German.  (When he was in Germany last year trying to order a meal, he wondered then if he hadn’t made a mistake at this early time in his career!)

Barry got his degree in physics from RPI in 1970, the same year they started having a lottery for serving in the military.  Lottery numbers were given out based on a person’s birth date. His came up as number 336, so it was wasn’t likely that he would be sent to fight in the Vietnam war.  (His twin brother, who did not go to college, went into the military before they started the lottery so he was already in Vietnam.  Luckily he came home safely from the war). Since he didn’t have to worry about being sent to war, Barry was able to go on to study physics in graduate school at the University of Connecticut.

Studying physics in graduate school was getting away from practical things so Barry started looking for related courses where he could take what he knew about physics and apply it to real problems.  He learned about the biophysics (physics as it relates to biology) program at the University of Rochester, so he went there after getting a Masters in Science in Physics from the University of Connecticut in 1972.

One of the teachers at Rochester needed a student to help with his studies in the physiology of breathing.  He had a fancy new machine that wasn’t working, so he figured that Barry’s background in physics would be helpful.  Thus began Barry’s career in physiology!

Barry stayed for an extra year in Rochester after getting his PhD degree in Biophysics in 1977.  He then spent two more years studying how the lungs work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Changing Careers
It is not normal for physiologists to change careers after 16 years in the same one. Dr. Peterson decided to try to find a job with a drug company. He ended up getting help with finding the job from his daughter.  He found the job on the company’s web site by digging through long lists of jobs that all required 5-10 years experience working with drug companies.  He finally found one that just said “experience making physiological measurements in humans.”  He applied online for that job, but it never went anywhere.  So he went to a meeting where he knew people from that company would be and gave his application to three to four people.  One of them gave it to the person in the company who was hiring, so Dr. Peterson got a phone call the very next week.  During the phone call, Dr. Peterson said that his daughter had asked him to take her to the Northeast to look at schools and so it would be no trouble for him to stop by to visit the company.  Dr. Peterson went up and met with the person for an hour. After that, he was asked to come back again and talk to more people about the job.

It wasn’t until he was getting ready to give a talk to the company about his work that Dr. Peterson saw how all his past work fit together.  Because the job would include developing new ways to do things, he decided to talk about how he developed new things over the past 16 years and was very surprised to see that was really what he’d been doing all along. The talk worked and he got the job. He started in December 1999 as Associate Director of Clinical Technology at Pfizer Global Research and Development. 

Dr. Peterson’s group has the job of coming up with ideas and then developing new ways of doing things that would help in the development of new drugs.  The job has turned out to be fun, a good match, and a surprising combination of almost everything he had done before. The new job makes use of his background in physics, his work with the human subjects review board for clinical trials, his experience in developing new ways to do things, and his experience doing research.  The biggest differences he has seen between his past job at a university and his current job in a drug company is that he no longer has to apply for money to do his work, but he does have to be very careful about who he talks to and what he says about his new work.

However, he can say that he is working with different colleges and companies to develop new ways to look at the effects of new drugs on lung diseases.  He is also directing a dozen studies in the United States and Europe.  He really enjoys being able to travel to England, France, and Sweden a lot to work with other people who study the same things (all of whom speak terrific English—fortunately).

At home he enjoys woodworking and tennis with his daughter. With the new job, though, he hasn’t had much time for doing either of those things.

When he was working at the college in Texas, Dr. Peterson did a lot with K-12 science and math teachers in the East Texas area—but that’s another story.