As NASA's primary installation for flight research for more than half a century, Dryden is chartered to conceive and conduct experimental flight research for integrated flight and propulsion controls; advanced optical sensors and controls; viscous drag reduction; advanced configurations; high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft; remotely piloted vehicle technology; hypersonic vehicle experiments; high-speed research for civil transportation; atmospheric tests of advanced rocket and airbreathing propulsion concepts; instrumentation systems; and flight loads predictions. In carrying out this mission, Dryden operates some of the most advanced research aircraft in the nation.

From January 1996 to July 1998, Petersen had served as Dryden's Deputy Director. Before his assignment as Deputy Director, Petersen had served as acting Deputy Director since April 18, 1994. He had previously served since November 1993 as Assistant to the Director and from February 1992 to November 1993 as chief of the Center's National AeroSpace Plane Projects Office.

His earlier assignments at the Center included being chief of the Dynamics and Controls Branch within the Research Engineering Division. There, he provided multidisciplinary support to a variety of research programs in the areas of flight dynamics and controls, structural dynamics, and flight systems. Programs he supported in these capacities included the F-18 High Angle-of-Attack Research Vehicle (HARV), the X-29 Forward Swept Wing technology demonstrator aircraft, and the National AeroSpace Plane program.

Petersen served as chief of the Flight Controls Section from 1982 to 1985; chief engineer of the X-29 flight research project from 1985 to 1986; and chief of the Vehicle Technology Branch from 1989 to 1990.

Earlier in his career at Dryden, which he began as a university co-op student in 1971, Petersen worked as a research engineer on the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire and the Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology (HiMAT) programs. He joined Dryden as an aerospace engineer in 1974.

He was born on October 4, 1951, in LeMars, IA. He graduated from Iowa State University in 1974 with a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering and earned a master of science degree from UCLA in 1976, specializing in control systems. In 1979, he furthered his education at Stanford University in a year-long graduate engineering program. He received NASA's Exceptional Engineering Medal in 1985 and NASA's Exceptional Service Medal in 1987 for his contributions to the agency.