Peter Eastman
Senior Software Engineer at Stanford University
Redwood City, California, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolPeter Eastman is a senior software engineer with 18 years of experience specializing in high-performance molecular simulation and scientific machine learning, currently building tools at Stanford University. He brings deep expertise in physics-based simulation engines—contributing substantial backend work to OpenMM, ParmEd, MDTraj and PDBFixer—and has improved performance-critical components like neighbor-list builders and vectorized nonbonded forces. His background blends applied physics (PhD, Stanford) with leadership roles in industry, including architect and VP-level engineering positions, giving him both research rigor and product-minded implementation skills. An active open-source maintainer, he has added advanced features such as Drude particle support and AMOEBA force field compatibility, and has helped productionize ML tooling in projects like DeepChem. Notably, he combines low-level C++/GPU optimization experience with practical build-and-release automation across ecosystems such as conda-forge.
18 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
B.S., Applied Physics, B.S., Applied Physics at Yale UniversityPinewoodPh.D., Applied Physics, Ph.D., Applied Physics at Stanford University
Stackoverflow
1,249reputation
163kreached
7answers
15questions
Github Skills (56)
algorithm10
simulation10
opencl10
code-optimization10
algorithms10
conda-forge10
c-language10
geometry10
molecular-simulation10
simulator10
python10
scripting10
back-end-development10
testing10
simulations10
Programming languages (20)
Github contributions (5)
openmm/pdbfixer
Aug 2013 - Mar 2022
PDBFixer fixes problems in PDB files
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:15 releases, 7 reviews, 167 commits in 8 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Peter appears to be the primary developer of the `pdbfixer.py` module, which is the core of the project, responsible for fixing problems in PDB files. The user implemented features for identifying and adding missing atoms, handling non-standard residues, and adding water boxes. They also refactored the code into a class and added support for mmCIF files and membrane building.
pdb-filesproblemsfixespdb
openmm/openmm
Apr 2008 - Jan 2023
OpenMM is a toolkit for molecular simulation using high performance GPU code.
Role in this project:Backend Developer & Physics Simulation Engineer
Backend Developer & Physics Simulation EngineerContributions:32 releases, 163 reviews, 4339 commits in 14 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Peter contributed to the OpenMM molecular simulation toolkit, specifically focusing on implementing and optimizing features related to nonbonded interactions within the system. Their work involved enhancing the code's efficiency and stability by refactoring and vectorizing aspects of the CustomNonbondedForce. They also expanded the capabilities of the software by incorporating features such as parameter offsets for nonbonded exceptions and support for the new AMOEBA 2018 force field and GLYCAM.
cudamolecular-dynamicsopenmmgpusimulation
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