Elijah J. Petersen completed his PhD at the University of Michigan in Environmental Engineering in 2007. Then, he completed postdocs at the University of Joensuu (Finland) on a Fulbright scholarship and then the University of Michigan before joining NIST as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow. He became a staff scientist at NIST in 2010 and works in the Cell Systems Science group in the Biosystems and Biomaterials division. His research currently focuses on the development of robust, reproducible in vitro test methods. He is a co-chair of the ICCVAM validation workgroup.