Dr. Toshiki Tajima has worked on the physics of Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) for many years, with research focused on reconnection, tilting, current drive, RF transport, advanced fuel, transport scaling, fast particle heating, and fusion energy conversion. He also advises on TAE Technologies’ corporate strategy and has served as Chief Science Officer since joining the company in 2011.

He has won numerous accolades for his scientific work, including the Nishina Memorial Prize, the Enrico Fermi Prize, Chandrasekhar Prize, APS Robert Wilson Prize, Alfven Prize, Charles Townes Award, the Blaise Pascal Chair, and the Einstein professorship. He has authored 12 books and more than 600 papers, including work published in Physical Review Letters and The Astrophysical Journal. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences U.S. Liaison Committee with the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and a member of U.S. Exascale Computing Project (ECP) Industry-Agency Council.

Before joining TAE Technologies, Toshiki worked on plasma transport physics and particle simulation of plasma. In 1979, while working with J.M. Dawson at the University of California Los Angeles, Toshiki invented laser electron acceleration, a groundbreaking innovation in the plasma field. Relying on computer simulations, they proposed using high-power electromagnetic radiation from lasers to accelerate electrons to high energies.

After completing a bachelor of science and masters degrees in physics at the University of Tokyo, Toshiki earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, where he was the first Irvine-educated Ph.D. student under Professor Norman Rostoker, TAE’s technology co-founder. He is the first Norman Rostoker Chair Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine.