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Dr. Peterson is an Assistant Instructional Professor in the Masters in Computational Social Science program. He is a political scientist focused on international relations, and in particular the formation and development of international political institutions from complex systems of cooperation and conflict. Methodologically, his interests include formal theory and agent-based modeling, network analysis, and natural language processing. His research combines these computational approaches with an attention to historical cases.

His research has explored the role of historical patterns of trust and mistrust in the formation of close political unions, arguing that close institutional relationships are not the product of close affective relations, but instead are the result of mistrust among interdependent states. He has done related research on the long-term dynamics of hegemonic regional orders. This research has used mixed methods to explore cases from the early United States to early modern China.

His work has used agent-based modeling to develop a novel framework to explain hegemonic cooperation and competition in the international system, and to model the efficacy of conflict resolution policies. He has also published work on contemporary Chinese approaches to international order.