Tom Nugent

Since starting his work on optical wireless power as the first CEO and president of PowerLight predecessor LaserMotive 10 years ago, Tom has shifted into the CTO role. Prior, he was a project scientist at Intellectual Ventures Labs, a multidisciplinary early-stage R&D laboratory in Bellevue, Washington. While there, he was involved in the Photonic Fence project that used lasers to kill mosquitoes, as well as in unpublished medical device projects. He also once served as the research director at LiftPort Inc. One of Tom’s proudest achievements was helping the LaserMotive team win the 2009 NASA Centennial Challenge for power beaming. His pride continuously extends beyond this moment, however, for bringing together disparate technologies and people to make novel solutions to technical problems. About the technology, he says, “I particularly enjoy turning science fiction into reality, and seeing how amazed people are when they think about ways they could use it.” Tom holds a bachelor of science in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a master of science in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT. He also has a certificate in Japanese from the University of Pittsburgh.