Carnegie Mellon Engineering Alumnus Peter L. Levin Named As Chief Technology Officer At U.S. Veteran's Affairs
August 3, 2009
Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776
PITTSBURGH-A Carnegie Mellon University engineering alum has been appointed by President Barak Obama as the new chief technology officer for the U.S. Veterans Affairs.
Levin,
who earned a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1988 at Carnegie
Mellon, was tapped June 1 to be the first chief technology officer in the
office of the secretary and senior advisor to VA Secretary Eric Shineski.
"This
is a tremendous privilege for my family and me. The VA has shown tremendous
leadership-like in the area of electronic health records-that we can further
leverage to the benefit of the veterans, and ultimately for the nation. Health
care reform is ultimately about better health, and we have a lot to say about
that," according to Levin. "The VA also has some important
challenges; we can attack these in a more 'whole systems' way, from the bottom
up and from the top down. This is exactly the kind of thinking that I learned
at Carnegie Mellon, and that I have implemented in my academic, industry and
public service appointments. Andrew Carnegie compelled us to put our 'hearts in
the work.' This one gets my whole body," said Levin, who has written more
than 50 articles on topics ranging from global positioning to cybersecurity.
Levin
has been charged with identifying medical, web-based and advanced software
technologies for the VA, and that will support the 7,000 person Office of
Information and Technology led by Assistant Secretary and Chief Information
Officer Roger Baker, with whom he'll work closely.
"This
is the kind of technology challenge that we teach our graduates to face as they
continue to hone their many problem-solving skills for any task assigned. Peter
is simply the best expert for this job," said Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of
Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering and co-founder of Carnegie Mellon
CyLab.
Ed
Schlesinger, head of Carnegie Mellon's Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department, praised Levin for his leadership and technological savvy.
"Peter is the kind of alum who has both the technical expertise and
understanding of broad societal issues to handle the types of challenges
offered by this position," Schlesinger said. "His appointment to such
a prestigious and demanding post serves as an example to our students in terms
of the type of contributions they can make with the preparation provided by a
Carnegie Mellon education."
A
former White House fellow in the Clinton Administration, Levin spent nine years
at Worchester Polytechnic Institute in Worchester, Mass., where he won a
National Science Foundation Presidential (George W. Bush) Young Investigator
Award for his work in high-performance computing. He also enjoyed post-doctoral
training at the Technical University of Munich, and subsequently spent a year
as a visiting professor of mathematic physics, and Humboldt Fellow, at the
Technical University of Darmstadt.
Levin
will work closely with the senior leadership at the VA. "I've been given
the time and the space to be thoughtful and creative, and to help Secretary
Shinseki and Deputy Secretary Gould create the strongest possible technology
foundation for the 21st Century VA," said Levin.
Prior
to the VA post, Levin was founder and chief executive of DAFCA Inc, a
semiconductor software company. Until recently, he was on the board of the
network security company Astaro, based in Karlsruhe Germany, and was a venture
partner of Ventizz Capital Partners, in Duesseldorf. He also serves on the
advisory board at the Computer Science Department at the Worchester Polytechnic
Institute and is a consulting professor in the Department of Aeronautics and
Astronautics at Stanford University.