Peter Woit is a Latvian-American mathematician and physicist, born on September 11, 1957. He holds a permanent position as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University, where he works in twistor theory. Woit is a notable critic of string theory, arguing that it lacks testable predictions and receives excessive funding despite its speculative nature.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1979 with bachelor's and master's degrees in physics.