Peter Bird received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1987. He did his thesis research in compilation technology, developing a retargetable code generation system, based upon attribute grammars, which generated code for a wide class of pipelined architectures.

At Applied Dynamics International, in Ann Arbor, MI, he helped develop the programming language ADSIM, a language for specifying systems of first order differential equations. He designed the compiler for ADSIM, and developed the algorithms to map the language onto a parallel, pipelined architecture. ADSIM was used to develop several anti-lock braking systems, and for the control system of the Patriot Anti-Missile Defense System.

From 1991 to 1994, Dr. Bird was the Chief Architect at ACRI, a French company developing a multi-processor supercomputer.

Currently, Dr. Bird is a visiting professor of computer science at the University of Michigan. He is also a principal at Tamarack Consulting, a firm working in the electric utility industry, where he has helped to develop a compilation system which provides translation for OSI message protocols within nodes along the electric utility grid.