Peter Stein
Profile
Dr. Stein has a broad and extensive history of leading innovative research and engineering projects initiated to solve seemingly intractable problems. Most of his projects have been conducted under government funding through Scientific Solutions, Inc. (SSI), a company he founded in 1992. His current focus with SSI is to assist the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense in solving a top security concern for the U.S. – the difficult problem of reliably tracking weaponized unmanned underwater vehicles in ports and harbors.
Over the years, Dr. Stein has obtained well over $100MM of government basic research and development funding. Research expeditions led by Dr. Stein have taken him to the Arctic, Antarctic, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and many other locations around the world.
​
Some of the past projects led by Dr. Stein include:
-
Development and installation of a system at the Navy’s Seneca Lake test facility to measure the detectability of mines by sonar systems.
-
Development of a sonar system to detect marine mammals, including Chief Scientist on multiple expeditions to test the system off the California coast during the grey whale migration. Dr. Stein also led the effort to successfully defend the permit required to conduct these tests in federal court. This system is currently installed on four U.S. Navy surveillance platforms to protect marine mammals from high-powered sonar transmissions.
-
Development and installation of a Swimmer Detection Sonar Network to protect an overseas Navy base from terrorist divers carrying explosives. When first installed, it was the largest system of its type in the world.
-
Development of an ice penetrating communications buoy to transfer data from undersea vehicles in the Arctic to satellites.
-
Development of a snow load monitoring system to detect unbalanced snow loads on high-tension powerlines in Alaska.
Dr. Stein received his Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ocean Engineering Department and his Doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution joint program in oceanographic engineering. As an undergraduate he was awarded the Wallace Bruce Academic Prize for outstanding academic achievement. His undergraduate and graduate studies included multiple research expeditions, including six weeks aboard the schooner R/V Westward and six weeks in a U.S. Navy sponsored ice camp 150 miles from the North Pole. As a senior undergraduate, Dr. Stein was one of the youngest scientists to be deployed to the Arctic under government funding.
Dr. Stein currently holds 7 patents and has extensively published and presented his research in peer reviewed journals. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and a Member of the Corporation of the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Dr. Stein and his wife Jeanne have three children and four grandchildren. They live in Portland, Maine and Rangeley, Maine.