Peter Katz

Statistician III · Data Engineer · Duke University

Durham, NC

I’m the technical architect for a research group at Duke University, where I’ve spent nearly two decades building the infrastructure that makes long-running research possible. Most of my work centers on a 20-year longitudinal household survey of 30,000+ individuals across 8 survey waves in post-tsunami Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia. I work across the stack: SAS and Stata for survey data, Unity for tablet-based cognitive assessments deployed in rural Indonesian field conditions, web systems for public data access, and ArcGIS Pro for the geospatial and remote sensing work that connects survey households to satellite-derived environmental data.

Outside the university, I collaborate with traditional metal artists and sculptors on projects that sit at the intersection of digital design and handcraft—working in ZBrush, Rhino 3D, Plasticity, and Grasshopper for parametric and algorithmic design—then assist in bringing them to physical form in wood, aluminum, ceramics, bronze, and cast iron.

Experience

Duke University Department of Economics

Statistician III (Econometrician)

Durham, NC · August 2007–Present

  • Primary data engineer for a 20-year longitudinal household survey tracking 30,000+ individuals across 8 survey waves in post-tsunami Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia
  • Designed and maintain a six-layer SAS/Stata data pipeline from raw field data through public-use release, including person and household tracking files spanning two decades of panel data
  • Built a Unity-based tablet app for administering cognitive assessments in rural Indonesian field conditions, deployed across multiple survey waves
  • Produced satellite-derived environmental datasets linking tsunami inundation boundaries, vegetation recovery, and elevation to 30,000+ survey households—contributing to a peer-reviewed study of long-run recovery outcomes published in Communications Earth & Environment (2025)

California Center for Population Research UCLA

Programmer Analyst

Los Angeles, CA · September 2005–August 2007

Labor Occupational Safety and Health UCLA

Computer Resource Specialist

Los Angeles, CA · July 2004–September 2005

The Fresno Housing Authorities

Computer Applications Specialist

Fresno, CA · November 1999–January 2003

Sitel Corporation

Associate Support Engineer

October 1997–October 1998

Independent Technical Work

sessions-wait OpenClaw Plugin

Open-source agent coordination tooling · TypeScript, Python

2026

  • Built and published an open-source plugin for the OpenClaw AI agent platform that replaces polling-loop patterns with a clean blocking primitive for parent-child agent session coordination
  • Used in production to orchestrate multi-agent build pipelines (builders, verifiers, probes)
  • Published on ClawHub and GitHub under MIT license

Art Practice & Conceptual Design

Independent 3D Conceptual Design for Artists

3D Conceptual Design Artist

Durham, NC · 2015–Present

  • Work with traditional artists and sculptors to develop concepts digitally—modeling in ZBrush, Rhino 3D, Plasticity, and Grasshopper for parametric and algorithmic design—then assist in bringing them to physical form in wood, aluminum, ceramics, bronze, and cast iron
  • Casts aluminum and bronze at the Foundry (Liberty Arts) in Durham Central Park; participates in community iron pours across North Carolina
  • 3D scanning specialist—hundreds of models archived and published at sketchfab.com/peterkatz
  • 3D scanning of Pre-Columbian artifacts at the Nasher Museum of Art, testing portable LiDAR workflows for cultural heritage preservation (2025). Featured in Duke Co-Lab blog
  • Part of a small multidisciplinary team experimenting with 3D clay printing and algorithmic design at Duke University

Publications & Articles

Frankenberg E, Peshkin B, Katz P, Sumantri C, Thomas D. “High-resolution imagery and neural networks link post-tsunami land cover changes to population health and well-being.” Communications Earth & Environment (2025).

“Scanning the Past, Printing the Future: Exploring Workflows at the Nasher Museum.” Duke Co-Lab Blog (2025). colab.duke.edu

Civic & Community

PresidentInterNeighborhood Council of Durham (INC)2018
ChairHousing Appeals Board, City of Durham2015
PresidentOld North Durham Neighborhood Association2010
Board MemberReinvestment Partners2010–2020
Board MemberLiberty Arts2016–2021

Education

University of California, Los Angeles

Bachelor of Arts in Economics

College and Departmental Honors, Cum Laude · 2006

Skills

Statistical SAS, Stata, Python
Web PHP, Drupal, HTML/CSS
Agent Tooling TypeScript, OpenClaw, MCP
Interactive Unity 3D, C#
GIS & Remote Sensing ArcGIS Pro, GDAL, satellite imagery analysis
Database SQL, VBA, SAP R3
3D Scanning & Printing Photogrammetry, LiDAR, FDM/SLA, CNC
3D Modeling ZBrush, Rhino 3D, Blender, Plasticity, Grasshopper
Survey CSPro, longitudinal data management

Other