Leadership
Dr. Michl Binderbauer
Chief Executive Officer
TAE was founded in 1998 to create a completely safe, sustainable, non-radioactive source of nuclear energy, capable of powering the planet for centuries. Over the last two decades, Michl has evolved TAE into a fusion industry leader and expanded the company’s technology portfolio to include power management solutions for electric mobility, grid storage and efficiency, and more.
While serving as TAE’s Chief Technology Officer, Michl spearheaded a partnership with Google to apply machine learning and AI technology to fusion research. In 2014, TAE and Google jointly developed the Optometrist Algorithm, which dramatically accelerated TAE’s technological advances by combining human and computer intelligence to exponentially improve the efficiency of TAE’s fusion energy development program.
From 2015 to 2017, drawing upon his previous experience in healthcare and infection control startups in both Europe and the United States, Michl guided the development of TAE’s first subsidiary, TAE Life Sciences. TAE Life Sciences is a medical startup that leverages TAE’s patented particle accelerator beam technology for a promising cancer treatment that selectively targets tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue.
Michl became CEO of TAE in 2018 and holds well over 100 U.S. and international technology patents. He has published many papers in the world’s leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Science, Physical Review Letters, Nature Communications, and more. He has been featured in press coverage highlighting the potential and prowess of TAE’s approach to fusion, including a cover story in Time magazine, The New York Times, Financial Times, National Geographic, Science and PBS NewsHour. Michl is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Physical Society. He is a recipient of UC Irvine’s prestigious Lauds & Laurels Award, and was an inaugural inductee into the UCI School of Physical Sciences Hall of Fame. He also serves on the school’s Industry Advisory Board on the Dean’s Executive Cabinet.
Michl earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Irvine, under the guidance of fusion energy pioneer and TAE’s technology co-founder Dr. Norman Rostoker.
Dr. Toshiki Tajima
Chief Science Officer
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.
Ran Bareket
Chief Financial Officer
Ran Bareket became Chief Financial Officer of TAE Technologies in 2022, bringing his expertise as a highly accomplished senior executive and corporate officer with global business experience.
Ran possesses a diverse background in operational roles within manufacturing, supply chain and all financial disciplines, including controllership, business development, financial planning and analysis, SEC reporting, internal audit and financial system design and implementation. He has led successful acquisitions and integrations.
Previously, Ran served as corporate vice president and chief financial officer for nLIGHT, a publicly-traded company. Before joining nLIGHT, Ran served as corporate vice president and chief financial officer for Orbotech Ltd., a publicly-traded company. Ran also held various finance positions at Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc., a global designer and manufacturer of semiconductor, LED and electronic assembly equipment, including corporate vice president and principal accounting officer.
Ran is a Certified Public Accountant, and has earned a B.A. in accounting and management from the Tel-Aviv Management College and earned an M.B.A. from Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. R. David Edelman
Chief Policy & Global Affairs Officer
A longtime advisor to TAE, David joined the company following five years of teaching and leading research on emerging technologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he remains an IPRI Distinguished Fellow.
In prior roles in the private sector, he has served as the chief architect and strategist of public trust, safety, and initiatives at high-growth startups in the AI, robotics, and clean energy spaces. In the public sector, David served for over six years in the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Economic & Technology Policy, Director for Cybersecurity on the National Security Council, and Senior Advisor in the Office of Science & Technology Policy. He began his career at the State Department as one of the founding members of the Department’s office of cyber affairs, and later served as the lead U.S. negotiator on Internet issues at the United Nations.
He also sits on the boards of the Fusion Industry Association, Electric Power Engineers, Partium, and the non-profit Freedom Forum.
David holds a B.A. from Yale, and a Master’s and Doctorate degree from Oxford University, where he was a Clarendon Scholar.
Janet Leong
Chief Human Resources Officer
Janet Leong joined TAE Technologies in 2022 as the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer. She brings more than 25 years of experience building human resources teams and focuses on creating strong employee cultures. She consistently partners to create successful talent focused organizations, revamped rewards and recognition programs, and driven diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Prior to TAE, Janet worked in leadership roles at several technology companies including CoreLogic, Experian, and most recently as VP of Human Resources for Spireon, a leading vehicle telematics company.
Janet earned a degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and also earned CPA and PHR certifications.
Jim McNiel
Chief Growth Officer
Jim served on the Board of Directors of TAE Technologies for over a decade prior to being appointed Chief Marketing Officer in 2021 and promoted to Chief Growth Officer in 2024. As an early investor in TAE, Jim has witnessed the challenges and achievements experienced by TAE in its pursuit of commercial fusion power.
Prior to TAE, Jim spent decades at the forefront of several successful technology firms. He most recently served as Chief Strategy Officer and Board Director at ProHawk, which produces the most advanced military- and commercial-grade video enhancement software. Prior to that, he was Global Chief Marketing Officer at NETSCOUT, the leading provider of service assurance and network performance management systems.
In addition to building successful tech firms such as Netegrity and OutlookSoft, Jim has served as CEO of PrimeGen US, CEO of FalconStor Software, General Partner of Pequot Capital, co-founder of Cheyenne Software, Senior Director of Advanced Products for AST Research, and a lead software engineer at LucasFilm Ltd.
Jim was also the Executive Producer and co-creator of “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World,” a documentary directed by Werner Herzog that explores the promise and pitfalls of our technology-centric world. Jim has attended The Wharton School for business administration and management as well as MIT Sloan School of Management for finance for engineers.
Ken Roberts
General Counsel
Ken Roberts is General Counsel of TAE Technologies and has served the company as Intellectual Property Counsel in varying capacities since 2000.
Prior to joining TAE, Ken was a partner at the law firms of Dickstein Shapiro LLP, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, and Lyon & Lyon LLP, where he provided intellectual property counsel services to several companies and universities. Ken started his career as a patent and trademark attorney at Lyon & Lyon in 1993.
Ken graduated cum laude with a J.D. from the University of San Diego Law School and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Jonathan Toretta
Chief Revenue Officer
An experienced global energy equity specialist in public and private markets, Jonathan maintains strong relationships with global corporate leadership, global investors and other vital members of the finance and energy industries. He has served as an expert advisor in the energy and financial services sector.
Prior to TAE Technologies, he was global energy equity specialist at Societe Generale, Corporate & Investment Banking, in London and New York, a VP at IHS Herold and Manager at Royal Dutch Shell.
Jonathan graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with and earned an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He is a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar (1999-2000) and is native to Greenwich, CT and Zurich, Switzerland.
Demetri Andrikos
Vice President, Associate Counsel
Before coming to TAE in 2021, Demetri was Vice President, Legal & General Counsel for The Scripps Research Institute, one of the world’s leading biomedical research organizations.
As TAE’s Vice President, Associate Counsel, Demetri provides advice and counsel to all of the company’s business units, including TAE Power Solutions, a subsidiary of TAE revolutionizing e-mobility and energy storage, and TAE Life Sciences, a medical startup that leverages TAE’s patented particle accelerator beam technology.
Demetri holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Long Beach, and a Juris Doctor from Southwestern Law School. He is licensed to practice in California.
Jennifer Ensley-Lowe
Vice President, Marketing
Jennifer is a highly experienced marketing executive working in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City over the past two decades.
She has helped consult and advise an array of businesses, from Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 500 companies. Her past clients include Carnegie Hall, A&E Television Networks, World Science Festival, U.S. State Dept., Visa and Reading Rainbow. She has previously worked for premium television network HBO and digital-first companies, such as Metaverse Mod Squad. Jennifer has also been a partner in St. Helena, Calif.-based cabernet sauvignon boutique winery Unwritten Wines since 2014.
Jennifer earned a bachelor of science degree in marketing from New York University and an MBA at William Paterson University.
Dr. Hiroshi Gota
Vice President, Program Management and Science Fellow
Hiroshi has committed the majority of his research and career to field-reversed configuration (FRC) magnetic confinement fusion, and he has worked on seven different FRC experimental devices, including three at TAE. His research has been published in more than 60 papers and articles in various scientific and technical journals. His research has been primarily focused on experimental subjects to characterize and understand FRC physics phenomena as well as to improve FRC plasma performance by optimizing experimental apparatuses. His broad experimental expertise covers a variety of plasma diagnostic skills, such as magnetics, interferometry, bolometry, spectroscopy, imaging, and tomographic reconstruction, where dedicated synthetic data analysis has been carried out as a regular basis. He also has a wide experience and knowledge in high-voltage pulsed-power systems.
At TAE, Hiroshi oversees a wide range of Norman activities that include machine operations, data collection and analysis, experimental planning, as well as setting goals and strategies for near- and long-term physics and experimental campaigns. He also manages and oversees Copernicus fusion program activities, which include defining physics design requirements, as well as engineering system design and development. Beyond TAE’s internal fusion research activities, he also manages and/or contributes to various research collaborations with external institutes and labs such as Nihon University, PPPL, UCLA, UW-Madison, NIFS, and Google.
Hiroshi is an American Physical Society (APS) lifetime member and Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research (JSPF) member. He serves as a committee member in various scientific community workshops and conferences. He has also held a Visiting Researcher position at Nihon University since 2017.
Hiroshi joined TAE in 2007, after earning a Ph.D. in physics from Nihon University in Tokyo in 2005 and continuing his work and research as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Michael Hartman
Senior Vice President, Finance
Michael began his career at The Boeing Company, and brought his expertise to a diverse set of industries. Michael has held leadership positions at Aggreko and DDi Corp. (now part of TTM Technologies, Inc.); and consulted for Conagra Brands, Ingram Micro and L3 Technologies.
Michael earned his M.B.A from University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration from California State University, Fullerton.
Michael Meekins
Vice President, R&D for TAE Technologies and TAE Life Sciences
Michael joined TAE in 2005 and laid the foundation of the engineering department before being invited to join the international nuclear fusion research and engineering project ITER, headquartered in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. After five years there, Michael returned to TAE to build the C-2W machine in 2015.
Michael has also coordinated the engineering, fabrication and installation of TAE Life Sciences’ medical particle accelerator, part of the Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) for cancer treatment, in Novosibirsk, Russia and Xiamen, China.
Michael brings a wealth of expertise and experience to TAE, with training in nuclear fusion safety analysis, risk management, program management, fabrication of ultra-high vacuum equipment, high consequence rigging and lifting, welding, machining and advanced manufacturing techniques. He is named in numerous patents and has had his research published in respected journals, including Physics of Plasmas, Structural Engineering International, Physics Procedia, and Physical Review Letters.
Prior to joining TAE, Michael worked for Lockheed Martin and Archimedes Technology Group.
Michael earned a B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Sergei Putvinski
Senior Vice President, Fusion Energy
Sergei’s specific areas of research include design of experimental tokamaks and tokamak reactors, physics of burning plasmas in tokamaks, plasma MHD equilibrium, plasma stability and transport, and physics of energetic particles. He has extensive experience in analysis, numerical modeling, simulation and interpretation of plasma experimental results.
Prior to working for TAE Technologies, Sergei worked as Senior Scientific Officer for Particle Physics at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France. He has also worked for the Joint European Torus (JET) project, Archimedes Nuclear Waste LLC, .
Sergei is the author of more than 100 publications in scientific journals, with more than a dozen U.S. and Russian patents.
Sergei earned his doctor of science degree in plasma physics and chemistry in 1990, and a Ph.D. in plasma physics in 1976, both from the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. He earned his master of science in mathematical physics and aerodynamics from the Moscow Physics-Technical Institute in 1971.
Mark Stirrat
Vice President, Intellectual Property Counsel
His deep expertise in all aspects of the patent life cycle has been utilized to build patent portfolios for both established and start-up tech organizations, negotiate global patent cross-licenses between Fortune 500 companies, and litigate patent infringement lawsuits in Federal Court.
Mark’s strong background in engineering enriches his approach to patent law. Before practicing law, he was a product and IP engineer in the semiconductor industry.
Mark earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Purdue University and his JD from the University of San Diego School of Law.
Dr. Erik H. Trask
Vice President, Fusion Energy
Erik joined TAE as a research scientist in 2011, working as a scientist, analyst and operator on the C-2 Field Reversed Configuration device while rising through the ranks. Erik has won the company’s annual award for achievement on two occasions, once for leadership in joint research with Google and once for assisting with the design and construction of the ~100GW pulsed power system on C-2W.
At TAE, Erik has managed a cryogenic hydrogen pellet fueling system, developed RF sniffer probes, served as chief operator and has been a frequent experimental Session Leader on the C-2W device at TAE. He was instrumental in the development of a shot scheduler system where batches of complete experimental machine settings are prepared prior to run days allowing efficient queuing of experiments.
His current responsibilities include managing operational activities, ensuring data analysis and processing pipelines are running well, and designing and scheduling experiments. His research interests include development of plasma models, studies of wave heating schemes in over-dense plasma, implementing efficient search techniques in high dimensions, and high power rotating magnetic field plasma sources.
Erik is a member of the American Physical Society and American Nuclear Society, where he has been a frequent presenter, served as session chair, and helped organize meetings. He has served as an advisor to the DIII-D program at General Atomics and been a member of the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC). While on FESAC, he also served on the associated subcommittee to produce the 2020 long range strategic plan ‘Powering the Future.’
Erik earned his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Irvine, where he conducted studies of fluctuation-induced transport on the Irvine Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) and earned his bachelor of science degree in applied physics from Pacific Lutheran University.
Stephen Wong
Vice President, Corporate Accounting
In addition to helping build pre-revenue companies, Stephen’s accounting background includes initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, international consolidations and Securities and Exchange Commission reporting.
Stephen is an active Certified Public Accountant with a bachelor of science in accounting from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Board Members
Michl Binderbauer
Chief Executive Officer of TAE Technologies, Inc.
Marco Arese
Co-founder Hyperion Software
Tad Buchanan
Chief Executive Officer, Buchanan Investments
Addison Fischer
Co-Founder and President, Planet Heritage Foundation
C. Richard Kramlich
Chairman and General Manager, Kramlich Investment Company; Founding Partner, New Enterprise Associates
Dr. Richard A. Meserve
President Emeritus, Carnegie Institution for Science; Former Chairman of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Senior of Counsel, Covington and Burling LLP
Dr. Ernest J. Moniz
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus, MIT; Former United States Secretary of Energy
Jeff Samberg
Managing Director, Acadia Woods Partners, LLC
Michael B. Schwab
Founder and Managing Director, Big Sky Partners