Carl Petersen studied physics as a bachelor student in Oxford (1989-1992). During his PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. Michael Berridge in Cambridge (1992-1996), he investigated calcium signalling and obtained the first evidence for vertebrate homologs of Drosophila TRP channels. In his first postdoctoral period (1996-1998), he joined the laboratory of Prof. Roger Nicoll to investigate synaptic transmission and plasticity in the hippocampus. During a second postdoctoral period with Prof. Bert Sakmann (1999-2003), he began working on the primary somatosensory barrel cortex, investigating cortical circuits and sensory processing. Carl Petersen joined the Brain Mind Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2003, setting up the Laboratory of Sensory Processing to investigate the functional operation of neural circuits in awake mice during quantified behavior.