Professor Peter Lee, Professor of Applied Ethics, is Co-Director of the University of Portsmouth Centre for Defence, Risk and Resilience. His expertise focuses on the ethical, operational and other human aspects of UK Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (drone) operations, the ethics of AI and autonomous weapon systems, and moral injury and mental harms in military and police personnel. In 2014 he contributed ethics insights to the International Committee of the Red Cross Conference: ‘Autonomous Weapon Systems: Technical, Military, Legal and Humanitarian Aspects’. From 2016-2018 he was granted unprecedented research access to the two RAF Reaper squadrons for his book, Reaper Force: The Inside Story of Britain’s Drone Wars.  In 2020 Peter led a project which explored legal, ethical, and moral perspectives on advanced technology and emerging weapon systems. In April 2023 he commenced a collaborative EPSRC-funded project to create a Trustworthy Autonomous Robotic Drone System to Support Battlefield Casualty Triage, while in 2024 he was part of an ASIS-funded collaborative project entitled, ‘Autonomous Vehicles: Opportunities, Threats and Challenges. Peter is a member of the UK Ministry of Defence Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy Ethics Advisory Panel. He taught at RAF College Cranwell from 2008-2017 and served as an RAF chaplain from 2001-2008.

The ethics of AI and autonomous weapon systems, the politics and ethics of war and military intervention, and the ethics and other human factors of lethal military drone operations. Peter is currently at supervisory capacity in these fields.