Brian A. Nelson
Distinguished Technology Fellow & Co-founder
Brian A. Nelson is a leading fusion engineer and co-founder of Zap Energy who has designed, built, and operated more than a dozen fusion energy concepts, including all of UW and Zap’s sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch devices.
Nelson’s career spans 35 years of academic research in plasma physics at the University of Washington, the Australian National University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Iowa prior to the founding of Zap Energy. After earning his PhD in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics, he became a leading fusion engineer and research professor. Nelson has a long record of publications and achievements in plasma physics and fusion technology and is a Research Professor Emeritus in Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Washington. He co-founded Zap Energy with Benj Conway and Uri Shumlak in 2017, and served as the company's CTO for nearly a decade. As Distinguished Technology Fellow, he continues to work closely with the Zap team to advance its fusion and pulsed power technologies.