Thomas Clayson

Dr Thomas Clayson is founder and CTO of Magdrive, UK based start-up developing the next generation of spacecraft propulsion. Thomas completed his PhD in plasma laboratory astrophysics at Imperial College London, where he also served as president of the Imperial College Robotics Society. He played a key role at VC backed fusion pioneers First Light Fusion, to design and build the largest pulsed power machine in Europe for nuclear fusion experiments. In 2019, Thomas founded Magdrive alongside his cofounder Mark Stokes and the company has since grown to 35 people. Magdrive successfully launched their Rogue thruster for its first In-Orbit Demonstration in June 2025. Thomas has been invited to present work in Europe, the US, Japan, China and has published over 20 research papers.