Peter A. Peterson was born to Andrew Peterson and Paschalia Economon in Bristol, Connecticut, on March 17, 1925. He graduated with his B.S. (1947) in biology and chemistry from Tufts University after serving in the Navy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital during World War II. He earned his Ph.D. (1953) in genetics, botany and zoology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Following graduation, Peterson was hired as Assistant Geneticist (1953-1956) at the University of California Riverside. Peterson joined the faculty at Iowa State University as Assistant Professor (1956-1959) in the Department of Genetics. He was promoted to Associate Professor (1959-1968) with a joint appointment in the Departments of Genetics and Agronomy. He was named Professor (1968-2013). He was awarded emeritus status upon his retirement in 2013.

Peterson was widely known for his research in studying the transmission of genetic traits via corn. His lifelong research focused on transposable elements and by using operational test of his own devising to discover a number of transposable element systems such as the En system, Cuna (Cu), Cycler (Cy), and Ubiquitous (Uq).

Peterson was the author of numerous research articles on corn genetics as well as the book Maize Genetics and Breeding in the 20th Century (call number SB191 M2 P4175 1999). He received several awards including the Distinguished Iowa Scientist Award (1988) from the Iowa Academy of Science, the Burlington Northern Foundation Award for Career Achievement in Research (1992), and the National Council of Commercial Plant Breeders Award for Genetics and Plant Breeding (1994).

Peterson married Sally Rohrer on Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and together they had two children, Sara and Susan. Peterson died on September 7, 2017.