Carlos Romero Talamás recognized on Technical.ly’s RealLIST of Innovators 2026 for his work on fusion energy

Carlos Romero Talamás, associate professor in mechanical engineering, has been named a RealLIST Innovator in 2026 by the technology and entrepreneurship-focused news publication Technical.ly. The list is created to honor the inventors, scientists and engineers who are shaping Maryland’s tech future. Romero Talamás was recognized for his work aiming to bring clean, affordable, and reliable fusion energy to market. 

Romero Talamás is CEO of Terra Fusion, a company spun out of his ARPA-E-funded research. The research, for which Romero Talamás served as the lead principal investigator, advanced the performance of a centrifugal mirror fusion concept. Compared to mainline fusion approaches, the centrifugal mirror has a simple, axisymmetric geometry and provides a potential low-cost pathway to a commercially viable fusion reactor.