Thomas perhaps embracing trendy field of research (10)
I believe the answer is:
discipline
'research' is the definition.
(I know that research can be written as discipline)
'thomas perhaps embracing trendy field' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'trendy' could be 'in' ('in' can mean fashionable) and 'in' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'disciple' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for discipline that I've seen before include "Correct" , "Branch of knowledge; punish" , "Training designed to engender self-control" , "Field" , "Correction" .)