Peter Smittenaar
Director of Data Science and AI

Dr. Peter Smittenaar explores how innovative technology and data science can help solve development problems. He believes that both public and personal health stand to improve immensely from tech innovation, and his mission is to ensure this happens sooner rather than later.

Peter draws on several years’ experience in tech innovation in health. Prior to joining Surgo Foundation he headed up data science and clinical research at Hinge Health, a start-up delivering digital musculoskeletal care. Peter also worked at Cancer Research UK as principal scientist on the Citizen Science team, which developed several mobile apps and web-based projects that brought over half a million people together to help analyze image data from the charity’s research groups.

Peter obtained a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from University College London, where he studied the neural mechanisms underlying decision-making and reward-learning. During this time, he co-developed The Great Brain Experiment, a first-of- its-kind psychology experiment framed as a smartphone game which tested over 150,000 participants. Peter has an MSc in cognitive neuroscience and BSc in molecular biology from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Peter works with Surgo Foundation on behalf of SCL