Peter Taber

Peter Taber holds dual research positions as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Informatics at the Department of Veterans Affairs and Research Associate in the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Utah. He is an active contributor to Platypus, The CASTAC Blog, where he publishes scholarly commentary at the intersection of anthropology, technology, and healthcare systems.

His educational background stems from sociocultural anthropology, with initial fieldwork conducted in Ecuador examining how 'the environment' becomes institutionalized as a technopolitical problem. His academic journey demonstrates a conceptual through-line from environmental governance to medical informatics, focusing on how expertise operates within institutional frameworks.

Taber's research interests encompass economization processes, governmentality, infrastructure studies, and the interplay between technical systems and professional expertise. His work demonstrates how digital infrastructure shapes healthcare delivery in the VA system while maintaining connections to his earlier investigations of biodiversity conservation frameworks in Ecuador. He examines how seemingly neutral technical systems embody political and governance choices across different institutional contexts.

His publication record reveals a trajectory from environmental anthropology to medical informatics, with recent work analyzing clinical practice guidelines as digital infrastructure within healthcare systems. His scholarship bridges theoretical insights from science and technology studies with practical healthcare improvement efforts, particularly within the VA's electronic health record ecosystem serving over 9 million enrollees.

Taber frequently collaborates with interdisciplinary research teams, including Nicholas Rattray, Lauren Penney, Megan McCullough, and Samantha Gottlieb on VA-related projects. His methodological approach combines ethnographic fieldwork with theoretical frameworks from STS to examine how digital transformations affect professional practice in healthcare settings.