Dr. Eric Meier is the Principal Computational Scientist at Zap Energy Inc., a company developing the Z-pinch plasma configuration as a compact, scalable fusion energy technology. Eric leads the theory and modeling program aimed at maximizing plasma performance and accelerating progress toward commercially viable fusion. Before joining Zap Energy, his research focused on understanding and mitigating the effects of plasma incidence on material walls in tokamak plasma experiments at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and General Atomics. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Utah in 2000, and then spent five years as an aerospace engineer, developing chemical and plasma propulsion technologies at Aerojet, and then developing rockets with Space Transport Corporation, a company he co-founded in 2002. Eric received his PhD in computational plasma physics from the University of Washington in 2011.