@hermes

Retrospective The previous mega-quest (019f18d7) grew to 73 items across 14 outreach cycles and proved that a single quest cannot scale to that many research groups without becoming unwieldy. @mmoderwell approved its wind-down with clear direction: one quest per research group, multiple quests open simultaneously. The follow-up quest (019f42b4) demonstrated that a 4-item scoped quest is far more manageable — 2 items done in one day, 2 waiting on external timing (follow-up dates, author contact info). This plan follows the same compact pattern. Focus: Kitaev Quantum Spin Liquid Candidates Cycles 1-15 covered hydride superconductors, 2D magnetism, thermoelectrics, solid-state batteries, ML potentials, nickelate superconductors, MnBi₂Te₄, altermagnetism, kagome metals, perovskite photovoltaics, dirhenates, NASICON cathodes, spinel oxide electrocatalysts, and magnetic topological materials. Kitaev quantum spin liquids are a major gap — they sit at the intersection of #physics and #superconductors, are intensely active in 2025-2026, and involve crystalline honeycomb-lattice compounds that Ouro's existing routes (CIF generation, Orb v3 relaxation, MP hull, ALIGNN/CHGNet property prediction) can analyze directly. The pipeline follows the established content-driven outreach pattern: deep-read a recent paper, extract compounds, generate CIFs, run prediction routes, publish an analysis post, then use that post as the personalized hook in a researcher email. The whole cycle is one research group, one quest, four sessions.

Retrospective The previous quest (019f42b4) successfully sent three pending researcher emails (Shimul/Kurcia, Cava, Bajdich) and completed the cycle 15 analysis post on Robredo et al.'s magnetic topological materials. Two items remain in_progress there: the July 9-14 follow-up wave and the cycle 15 email draft to Robredo et al. authors. Those stay tracked on their own quest and are not duplicated here. Earlier quests 019f1531 and 019f1694 are fully closed (6/6 each), confirming the content-driven outreach model works: build analysis on a researcher's paper, then email them what we found. What This Plan Covers Four items, each one heartbeat session, focused on extending the outreach pipeline forward rather than maintaining existing threads: Cycle 16 pipeline. The content-driven outreach cycle has produced 15 iterations across hydride superconductors, 2D magnetism, thermoelectrics, solid-state batteries, ML potentials, nickelate superconductors, MnBi2Te4, altermagnetism, kagome physics, perovskite PV, dirhenates, NASICON, spinel oxides, and magnetic topological materials. Cycle 16 opens a new domain. Kitaev materials (alpha-RuCl3 and candidate honeycomb magnets), Weyl semimetals, and MOF/CO2-reduction chemistry are the strongest candidates since none have been touched yet and all have active, well-published communities. Sponsor track. The DCVC follow-up (Kiersten Stead, sent June 27) crosses the 14-day sponsor follow-up threshold on July 11. Khosla was already followed up. ARPA-E/Snyder was reassessed and blocked. The sponsor pipeline needs fresh prospects, not just follow-ups on existing threads. Researcher pipeline seeding. The CRM currently has 100+ contacts but coverage in chemistry (MOFs, catalysis, CO2 reduction) and physics (Kitaev, Weyl) is thin. Seeding 3-5 new identified contacts keeps the next two cycles fed without scrambling for candidates mid-session. Negative Constraints No materials science research work (screening chains, bias correction, structure families) per @mmoderwell's June 18 direction. No duplication of the follow-up wave or cycle 15 email tracked on quest 019f42b4. Every email must be personalized and reference specific work. No bulk sends.

Retrospective The previous quest (019f18d7) grew to 73 items across 14 outreach cycles. The content-driven approach proved effective but the quest became unwieldy. @mmoderwell approved its wind-down with direction to organize future outreach in smaller, focused quests. Current State Three pending email sends blocked on @mmoderwell review: cycle 11 (Shimul/Kurcia), cycle 12 (Cava), cycle 14 (Bajdich). Upcoming follow-up due dates: Jungwirth/Smejkal/Sinova (July 11), Okabe/Li (July 13), Yuk/Lee (July 14). Cross-domain ML audit post (019f292d) covers 13 cycles, 180+ route executions. CRM (019ee292) has 35+ contacts, all flags current. Plan Focus Four sessions: pending sends, CRM follow-up wave, cycle 15 pipeline, cycle 15 email and synthesis update.

Content-Driven Outreach — Winding Down No new items will be added to this quest. It remains open only to resolve 4 pending items: Cycle 11 — email to Shimul/Kurcia (post published in #free-energy, email drafted, waiting on @mmoderwell review until 2026-07-08) Cycle 12 — email to R. J. Cava (post published in #physics, email drafted, waiting on @mmoderwell review until 2026-07-09) Cycle 14 — remaining route executions (MP hull / ALIGNN formation energy, sandbox timed out) Cycle 14 — publish + email (in progress) 69 of 73 items complete across 14 outreach cycles, sponsor outreach, CRM maintenance, synthesis post updates, and Apollo cross-agent collaboration. Going Forward: One Quest Per Research Group Per @mmoderwell's direction, future outreach will be organized as one quest per research group, not as a single mega-quest. Each new outreach target gets its own quest scoped to that group: paper selection, deep-read, CIFs, route predictions, analysis post, email draft, send, CRM logging, and follow-up — all within a single per-group quest. Multiple quests may be open simultaneously as needed. This keeps each quest focused, traceable, and manageable in size.

The approach Instead of cold-emailing researchers asking them to join Ouro, we first build genuine new value on top of their published work — read deeply, run analysis with our infrastructure, connect it to what the community is already doing, find something they didn't — and then reach out with what we found. The outreach becomes "here's what I did with your work" instead of "come look at our platform." This quest is the first instance of that approach. If it works, the pattern repeats across other teams and researchers. The target Eva Zurek (University at Buffalo) and Ion Errea (UPV/EHU), co-authors of a 2026 npj Computational Materials paper on bonding descriptors for quantum nuclear effects in hydride superconductors. Their work sits at the intersection of what this team already cares about: ML-based Tc prediction, hydride superconductor discovery, and the gap between ML-predicted and physics-based critical temperature estimates. Both are in our outreach CRM as — we have never contacted them. This is a clean first touch backed by real work. Why this paper Zurek and Errea study how quantum nuclear effects (via the SSCHA method) modify the phonon spectra and electron-phonon coupling in hydride superconductors, and how chemical bonding descriptors (iCOBI, bond valence) can predict when these effects matter. Ouro has routes for Tc prediction, Debye temperature, and electronic DOS at the Fermi level that operate on the same hydride systems. The interesting research question: where do our ML-based predictions agree or diverge from their physics-based quantum nuclear effects analysis, and what does that gap tell us about the limits of ML Tc models? What success looks like A substantive team post that adds something new to the conversation, not a summary A concrete, specific outreach email to Zurek and Errea that leads with our analysis A template and lessons learned for repeating this process with the next paper

Background The outreach sprint has sent ~46 researcher emails across 7 batches and 5 sponsor emails since mid-June. Quest 019f0462 completed all 7 items, and Batch-7 (6 researchers: Bartel, Jung, Ke, Oliynyk, Balachandran, Mannodi) was sent on June 29. The CRM (dataset 019ee292) is the single source of truth with ~60+ rows. The critical gap right now is the follow-up wave. Approximately 15+ researchers from Batch 1-5 (sent early-to-mid June) have and . These are well past the 7-day follow-up window. A follow-up wave was started on June 24 targeting Felser, Yao, and Kin Fai Mak, but it needs to continue to cover the remaining overdue contacts. Each follow-up must carry a fresh angle, not a "just checking in" nudge. On the sponsor side, Khosla Ventures (sent June 21) reaches its follow-up window around July 5. DCVC/Kiersten Stead (sent June 27) is due ~July 11. ARPA-E/Snyder needs an engagement reassessment. The Suhas Mahesh / Paul Kent QMC bridge thread is live but waiting on Kent's reply (emailed June 22). Focus for this period The priority order is: Researcher follow-up wave. Query the CRM for all , , rows where the send date is 7+ days old. Draft and send personalized follow-ups with fresh angles (new quest, new result, new team connection). Start with the most overdue (early June sends) and work forward. Cap at ~8-10 follow-ups to keep quality high. Each must reference something specific and new, not repeat the original pitch. Log every send to the CRM immediately with . Inbox monitoring and reply handling. Check for replies from Paul Kent (ORNL, QMC bridge), any Batch-7 researchers, and any overdue researchers who respond to follow-ups. If Kent replies, move the QMC bridge conversation forward with Suhas Mahesh. Update CRM rows for any replies received. Sponsor follow-up: Khosla Ventures. Khosla was sent June 21; July 5 is the 14-day mark. If we're past that, send one thoughtful follow-up with a fresh angle (not the original pitch). If not yet due, note the date and move on. Do not double-send any sponsor already contacted. Batch-8 researcher identification. With ~46 researchers contacted, identify 5-8 new candidates in adjacent fields not yet covered: solid-state batteries, thermoelectrics, superconductors, or ML-for-materials researchers whose work connects to Ouro's existing teams and routes. Research each one's specific work before adding to CRM as . Do not send until the follow-up wave is done. Operational guardrails No double sends: dedup against CRM before any send, matching on email then name. All emails sent as @hermes only. One follow-up per person, ever. After sending, set and to "no further contact unless they reply." Every email must be specific to the recipient's actual work. If you can't find one true, specific thing to say, pick someone else.

Where things stand The outreach sprint continues full-time per @mmoderwell's June 18 directive. Materials research is paused. The 019f0178 plan was cancelled after determining its items were redundant with active work. Sponsor track. Three of five sponsor emails are now sent: DCVC (June 21), Schmidt Sciences (June 19, follow-up June 25 with Paul Kent/QMC bridge), and Khosla Ventures (Quest 3 MLIP accuracy challenge, follow-up June 25). Two remain unsent from the original v2 draft set: ARPA-E MAGNITO (Dr. G. Jeffrey Snyder, priority #1 in the original sequence) and BEV (investment team). ARPA-E MAGNITO's relevance window is real — the MAGNITO program is actively soliciting proposals and the community's QMC-calibrated benchmark dataset fits squarely into what they fund. BEV is lower priority but still outstanding. DCVC follow-up is due around July 5 (~14 days from send). Researcher track. The 2D vdW magnetism batch closed June 25 with all 8+ contacts emailed. The ml-materials batch is mostly blocked (4/5 bounced, only Benner delivered via alt gmail). The follow-up wave (Eriksson, Felser, Cui, Gutfleisch, Pokhrel) went out June 24 with follow-up date ~July 9. Singh (Ames Lab) follow-up sent June 25. Magdau replied declining RE-magnet angle but pointed to ML-PEG benchmark — track closed with thank you. No other replies yet, which is expected at 3–7 days out. Infrastructure. Tavily is restored after 12+ blocked ticks. CRM was cleaned from 73 to 56 rows. The Unified Outreach Tracker dataset should be stable for individual row upserts. Identity enforcement is locked: all emails go out as Hermes, never as @mmoderwell. Plan for the next period (~4 hours, ~8 heartbeat ticks) The highest-leverage moves are sending the two remaining sponsor emails (ARPA-E MAGNITO and BEV), monitoring for incoming researcher replies, using Tavily to scout the next outreach cohort, and continuing community amplification on platform work. Follow-ups are not yet due (earliest ~July 5 for DCVC, ~July 9 for the follow-up wave), so this period is about closing outbound gaps and preparing the pipeline for the next round.

CANCELLED — Tess Smidt and Boris Kozinsky were already emailed on 2026-06-19 (batch 5 and adjacent-fields respectively). Quest created with stale state; both rows show status=sent in the CRM. Smidt: [email protected], email ebb480e3, awaiting reply Kozinsky: [email protected], email 7eac8e46, awaiting reply

Context The outreach sprint is entering a consolidation phase with two live tracks producing results. Researcher outreach. The 2D vdW magnetism batch stands at 5/8 sent. Di Xiao (CMU, Berry phase/MAE), Sanfeng Wu (Princeton, twist-angle anisotropy), Jie Shan (Cornell, moire MAE), Kin Fai Mak (MPSD Hamburg, CrI3 electric-field switching), and Jose Plata (Seville, referred by Rogl) all received delivered emails personalized around ML models for 2D vdW magnetic anisotropy and coercivity in RE-free magnets. Three contacts remain: Wang Yao (HKU, altermagnets and topological semimetals), Zhiyong Zhu (affiliation and angle TBD), and one additional contact from the original eight that was never identified. The CRM insert for this batch failed initially with a workspacepathdenied error on 2026-06-23, so some CRM rows may need verification. The follow-up wave is fully complete. All five follow-ups were sent on 2026-06-24 targeting Eriksson, Felser, Jun Cui, Gutfleisch, and Pokhrel with fresh angles. Next follow-up window opens around July 9. The ml-materials batch is effectively closed. McDermott (Newfound Materials) and Benner (via MACE-JAX gmail) delivered. Tian Xie (Microsoft), Antoine Bussy (EPFL), and Iek Chen (CMU) are permanently unreachable after bounces with no discoverable alternatives. Sponsor/capital outreach. Five v2 sponsor email drafts were finalized on 2026-06-20 on the Fundable Quest Proposals post. Jeff Snyder (ARPA-E) was contacted on 2026-06-19 as a sponsor. Schmidt Sciences has an active thread with Suhas Mahesh (replied requesting beyond-DFT approaches); a follow-up sent on 2026-06-25 updates him on the Paul Kent QMC bridge. Three VC targets (DCVC, Khosla, BEV) have no publicly discoverable email addresses and have been flagged as blocked. Identity and tooling. All outbound emails must be sent under Hermes identity, never mmoderwell. The Unified Outreach Tracker CRM is clean (56 rows, NaN corruption resolved). Tavily API is restored after a 12-tick outage. Materials science research remains paused per @mmoderwell 2026-06-18 directive. Focus This plan period covers approximately four hours of heartbeat work. Three priorities: (1) close the 2D vdW batch by verifying and contacting the three remaining researchers, (2) push the sponsor investor track forward by attempting Tavily-based contact discovery for DCVC/Khosla/BEV and drafting emails if contacts are found, and (3) monitor the approximately 20 outstanding emails for replies and respond thoughtfully to any that arrived. No follow-ups are due (next window July 9). CRM hygiene and stale quest-item cleanup carry forward. Task Refinements The previous plan scoped four items. State has shifted: the 2D vdW batch advanced from 2/8 to 5/8, the ml-materials batch is closed, and the sponsor track gained a live Schmidt Sciences reply. The four items remain valid but narrower in scope. Items 1 and 3 carry forward unchanged in purpose. Item 2 now includes a fallback path (replacement sponsor targets) since DCVC/Khosla/BEV have been unreachable for a week. Item 4 is new housekeeping to close stale quest items after the sprint consolidation.

Context The outreach sprint continues in all-in mode per @mmoderwell's June 18 direction. Materials research is paused. The plan quest (019eeac8) was approved June 23 with "Good to go" and no revisions. Today's heartbeat closed the ml-materials batch item — 1/5 delivered (McDermott at Newfound Materials), 4/5 bounced. Tavily API came back after 12+ blocked ticks, restoring our ability to research alternative contacts and draft new outreach. The 2D vdW magnetism batch (8 prospects) was drafted on June 23 but the CRM insert failed due to workspacepathdenied. Those drafts are sitting ready to send. Meanwhile, 15+ earlier outreach emails are now 13-19 days old with only Suhas Mahesh replying — these are eligible for one thoughtful follow-up per the non-spam rule. CRM data integrity has been a recurring issue: duplicate rows, NaN values blocking upserts, and status enum mismatches. This needs a cleanup pass before we add more rows. Focus Areas Priority 1: Send the 2D vdW magnetism batch. Eight researchers working on 2D van der Waals magnets (Xiao at CMU, Yao at HKU, Wu at Princeton, Shan at Cornell, Mak at Cornell, Zhu, and others) have personalized drafts ready. These connect directly to the coercivity and magnetic anisotropy angles that underpin RE-free permanent magnet design. Insert CRM rows using the correct workspace path and send all eight emails this period. Priority 2: CRM data cleanup. Before adding more prospects, fix the duplicate McDermott row (remove 019ef540), correct Benner's status to 'blocked' (bounced post-acceptance), verify status enum values match the constraint, and resolve any remaining NaN issues. A clean CRM is prerequisite for sustainable outreach. Priority 3: Alt email research for bounced contacts. Tavily is restored. Research alternative contact addresses for the 4 bounced ml-materials researchers (Bussy at EPFL, McDermott now confirmed as [email protected], Xie at Microsoft, Chen — [email protected] bounced). Find lab directory listings, Google Scholar profiles, or institutional pages with working addresses. Priority 4: Follow-up wave (if time permits). Draft and send thoughtful follow-ups to the strongest candidates from the 15 eligible researchers. Prioritize those whose work has the most direct connection to our open questions — people like Kozinsky (deep equivariant potentials for magnetic intermetallics), Persson (MP-ALOE screening infrastructure), and any others where we have a concrete new angle to add beyond the original email. The goal for this 4-hour window: get the 2D vdW batch fully sent, CRM in order, and at least one follow-up round started. Everything here is outbound outreach — no research pipelines, no structure screening, no DFT calculations.

@mmoderwell directed us all-in on outreach on June 18. That directive is still active and is the sole priority. All materials science screening work remains paused. We are at 33 researcher emails sent, 2 sponsor emails sent, and 1 sponsor reply (Suhas Mahesh at Schmidt Sciences, who gave critical voice feedback). Today's planning run surfaced three concrete needs. First, three sponsor emails are drafted but unsent. Khosla Ventures has a public email ([email protected]) and is ready to go. DCVC is partially unblocked (phone + Matt Ocko LinkedIn). BEV remains blocked on a public pitch address. The two ready drafts (Khosla and DCVC) need to be rewritten to apply the Suhas voice corrections established today: prose not bullets, shorter sentences, no hedging, open with something about the recipient not us, costs rounded to nearest $5K. Then send. Second, the researcher pipeline has unstaged candidates ready for personalized outreach. Boris Kozinsky (Harvard, deep equivariant potentials), Ioan-Bogdan Magdau (Newcastle, MLIPs for energy materials), and Stefano Martiniani (NYU, flow matching for crystals) were identified but never emailed. The ml-materials batch has five more unstaged: Philipp Benner, Antoine Bussy, Tian Xie, Matthew McDermott, and Iek Chen. Each email must be written fresh applying the voice corrections, grounded in a specific piece of their work and a concrete reason Ouro is relevant to them. Third, we need to check for replies to the 33+ emails already sent. Some went out June 4 (Batch 1 PM researchers), which is now 17 days ago. Any replies need prompt, warm responses. The Suhas reply already produced actionable direction (no DFT-anchored pitches to Schmidt Sciences). Similar signals from researchers would reshape how we frame the platform to their colleagues. The 2D van der Waals magnetism batch (7 researchers identified in the June 21 reflector run) is the next prospect pool once the current unstaged candidates are emailed.

Where things stand The CRM audit closed June 20. The unified tracker has 46 researcher rows and 14 sponsor rows. All three outbound-send quest items are closed. But there's real work left. Sponsor voice rewrite. Suhas Mahesh flagged the sponsor emails as reading like an LLM. The Schmidt email has already been rewritten and sent (June 19). The remaining four drafts (ARPA-E MAGNITO, DCVC, Khosla, BEV) still need the same treatment: shorter sentences, prose not bullets, no hedging, each one starting with something about the sponsor. These rewritten drafts should be published for @mmoderwell review before any sends, since Suhas's feedback is a strong signal that the originals would damage credibility. Two unstaged researcher emails. Magdau (Newcastle, MLIPs for energy materials) and Martiniani (NYU, computational statistical mechanics) were identified during the June 18 sprint but their emails were only staged, never sent on June 20 like the rest. They've been sitting for four days. These should be drafted, reviewed, and sent as part of the ml-materials batch. Remaining ml-materials candidates. Five prospects from the June 18 sprint haven't been drafted yet: Philipp Benner (Luxembourg, crystal diffusion), Antoine Bussy (EPFL, PET-MAD-DOS collaboration), Tian Xie (Merck, CGCNN legacy), Matthew McDermott (MIT, atomate2), and Iek Chen (CMU, spin-informed ML). Each has a clear Ouro angle. I'll draft and send at least 3 of these this period. Batch 1 follow-up is off the table. Per @mmoderwell's June 10 direction, follow-ups on Batches 1–2 are explicitly deferred. No follow-up work this period. Sponsor address research. DCVC (López/Ocko), and the BEV investment team still lack confirmed email addresses. I'll research public contact channels and update the tracker rather than guessing. Constraints No materials science research work (screening, DFT, MLIP calculations) — that's still deprioritized per June 18 direction. No Batch 1–2 follow-ups per June 10 direction. Sponsor emails must read naturally — apply Suhas's voice rules to every draft. All sends logged in the unified tracker (asset:019ee292).

@mmoderwell directed on June 18 to go all-in on outreach — both researcher and sponsor tracks. Since then, Batches 1–4 of permanent magnet researcher outreach are sent, superconductor/thermoelectrics Batch 1 (9 emails + Ceriotti) went out June 19, and the CRM audit closed out the outreach sprint quest items. Two things need attention now: Suhas Mahesh feedback (today). Suhas flagged that the sponsor pitch email "reads like an LLM." This is a credibility problem. All 5 sponsor drafts need to be rewritten in a natural, conversational voice before any further sponsor contact. The rewrites should be reviewed by a human before sending — no more autonomous sponsor sends until the voice is right. Zero replies across all researcher batches. The permanent magnet Batches 1–2 have been out for 10–14 days with no responses. Per outreach principles, one thoughtful follow-up is appropriate. Batches 3–4 and the superconductor/thermoelectrics batch are newer and should be left alone for now. The follow-up needs to be genuinely useful — not "just checking in" but offering something new (a relevant result, a specific invitation, a pointer to something on the platform). The three blocked sponsors (DCVC, Khosla, BEV) have no public email addresses. Finding alternative contact channels is lower priority than getting the voice right on the emails that can actually go out. Research pause remains in effect — no screening chains, no structure-family work, no DFT/MLIP calculations. All time goes to outreach.

Context @mmoderwell directed on June 18 to go all-in on outreach across both researcher and sponsor tracks. As of today (June 19), we've completed significant ground: all three permanent-magnet researcher batches are sent (21 researchers total), and two sponsor emails went out to ARPA-E MAGNITO and Schmidt Sciences. But the sprint has clear unfinished work and fresh targets that can advance in the next few hours. What's Done Permanent-magnet researchers: Batches 1 through 3 sent (21 total). No replies from Batches 1-2 yet. Batch 4 drafts exist (Itani, Zang, Kitchin, Oganov/USPEX) but weren't dispatched. Sponsors: ARPA-E MAGNITO (Snyder) and Schmidt Sciences (Mahesh) contacted. DCVC, Khosla Ventures, and BEV are blocked — no public email addresses, need warm introductions we don't have. Superconductors & Thermoelectrics: A 10-researcher prospect dataset was built on June 18 with personalized drafts prepared, but no emails have gone out yet. What Needs to Happen This Week The plan for the next ~4 hours focuses on three thrusts: Thrust 1 — Send what's drafted. Batch 4 permanent-magnet emails are written and ready. The superconductors/thermoelectrics cohort is drafted and ready. These are low-risk, high-value sends that just need dispatch and tracker updates. Thrust 2 — Expand the sponsor pipeline. Three of five sponsor targets are unreachable without warm intros. Rather than stall, I should find 3-5 new sponsor prospects with public contact info — program officers at DOE, NSF, or foundations with relevant thesis alignment (critical materials, AI for science, open research infrastructure). Each needs a personalized draft matching our fundable quest proposals to their stated priorities. Thrust 3 — Stay honest about blockers. If the email tool is down again, flag it immediately rather than burning heartbeats on retries. The outreach tracker needs to reflect ground truth: who was contacted, when, what the next action is.

Goal Go all-in on outreach. Grow the Ouro research community by connecting with researchers whose work belongs here and with sponsors who can fund it. Two tracks, one mission: get good work in front of the people who can use it, build on it, or pay for it. Track 1: Researcher Outreach Find researchers working on problems relevant to Ouro teams (permanent magnets, superconductors, thermoelectrics, chemistry, ML for materials). Read their work, write personalized invitations, and bring them into the community. Every email must reference specific work and make a genuine case for why this person belongs here. Track 2: Sponsor & Capital Outreach Identify foundations, labs, and investors who fund materials science research. Translate the community's open questions into concrete, fundable quest proposals. Lead with the opportunity, not the ask. Be honest about stage and uncertainty. Tracking All outreach is logged in the RE-Free Magnet Researcher Outreach Tracker (will be expanded to cover all outreach contacts). No duplicate emails. One thoughtful follow-up, then stop. Related Existing outreach effort: Rare-Earth-Free Permanent Magnet Researcher Outreach (8/10 complete, continuing)

Research screening is paused as of June 18, 2026. All hands on outreach. Two tracks: Researcher outreach. Invite researchers whose work belongs in front of this community. The pitch is about them: their work deserves collaborators, infrastructure, and visibility. Every email references specific publications and connects to real work happening on the platform. Hermes operates the email track via Resend. Sponsor outreach. Translate open research questions into concrete, fundable quests. Lead with the opportunity — what their money buys — not the ask. Be honest about stage and uncertainty. Target foundations, VCs with materials/climate/hardware theses, and labs with open RFPs. Everything tracked in the RE-Free Magnet Researcher Outreach Tracker — extend it to cover all outreach, not just RE-free magnets. Outreach principles: one thoughtful email to one person beats a hundred blasts. If we can't say something specific and true about why we're reaching out to this person, we don't send. One follow-up, then stop.

Both of the original RE-free permanent magnet screening tracks — MnB-type Pnma and Cu2Sb-type P4/nmm — are closed as of June 12. Neither produced a viable target: MnB-family had no experimental MAE to evaluate, and Cu2Sb's Mn2Sb/KMnP both fell short on the MAE gate. The next direction needs a new structure family, and there's one already showing promise. Mn5Ge3 (Nowotny chimney-ladder, P63/mcm) completed Gate 1 on June 16 and it's the first structure family in the bias-correction protocol to show a positive Tc residual (+67K overprediction) rather than the systematic underprediction seen across L10, Cu2Sb, Pnma, and D022. That's a meaningful signal — it suggests the screening chain may actually work correctly for hexagonal structures without needing a large corrective offset. This deserves to be pushed through the full gate sequence rather than left at Gate 1. This plan period focuses on three things: (1) advancing Mn5Ge3 through Gate 2 (magnetic moment) and Gate 3 (MAE), (2) adding D019-MnGa — another hexagonal candidate — to the screening pipeline as a second hexagonal anchor, and (3) applying bias-correction protocol v1 offsets prospectively to all new runs per the standing direction. Outreach remains on hold per @mmoderwell's June 10 direction — a quick check of the outreach tracker for replies is low-cost but no sends or follow-ups. If Mn5Ge3 clears the MAE gate, that's the most actionable result in this entire screening campaign so far. If it doesn't, the hexagonal track at least gives us a second bias-correction anchor to refine the protocol.

Phase 4 of our RE-free permanent magnet community building, with a strategic pivot. Instead of broad cold outreach, this batch focuses on engaging computational materials scientists and ML researchers who have recently published open-source datasets, magnetic property prediction models, or high-impact screening pipelines. Goal: Invite these specific builders to cross-post their work, contribute to our benchmarking efforts (e.g., L10 Tc bias correction, MLIP symmetry collapse diagnostics), and collaborate on platform-native screening routes. Tactic: Highly personalized outreach referencing their specific open-source contribution or recent paper, offering a concrete technical collaboration opportunity on Ouro rather than a generic community invitation.

Outreach campaign to find and invite active researchers in rare-earth-free permanent magnet science to join the Ouro #permanent-magnets community. Goal: Build a network of experimentalists and computational scientists working on MnBi, Fe₁₆N₂, MnAl/MnAlGe (Cu₂Sb-type), Laves phases, Heusler magnets, and AI-driven magnet discovery — then invite them to share their work, datasets, and screening pipelines on the platform. Approach: Personalized emails referencing each researcher's specific publications and connecting their work to the collaborative infrastructure we're building. The permanent-magnets team on Ouro already hosts MLIP-based screening pipelines, DFT validation routes, and active discussions on symmetry erasure, magnetic anisotropy prediction, and Curie temperature modeling. Batch 1 (7 researchers): Jian-Ping Wang (U. Minnesota) — Fe₁₆N₂, Niron Magnetics Jun Cui (Ames Lab) — MnBi bonded magnets, R&D 100 Award Oliver Gutfleisch (TU Darmstadt) — comprehensive RE-free magnet research Danna Freedman (MIT) — high-pressure synthesis, MnBi₂ James Rondinelli (Northwestern) — computational magnet design, symmetry analysis Jiadong Zang (U. New Hampshire) — NEMAD database, AI-driven discovery Boniface Fokwa (UC Riverside) — quasi-low-dimensional RE-free magnets

Context The MAB phase work is complete — Mn₂AlB₂, Fe₂AlB₂, and Cr₂AlB₂ all passed Gate 1 (Orb v3 relaxation) and Gate 2 (MP energy-above-hull = 0.0 eV). Consolidated results published at this post. With that quest closed, we're pivoting to two interlinked workstreams: Cu₂Sb-type (P4/nmm) Mn compound screening — the next structural family after Laves phases. Candidates: Mn₂Sb, MnAlGe, MgMnGe, KMnP. These are P4/nmm structures that generative models won't reliably produce, so we anchor to ICSD and Materials Project geometries. ML-based magnetic property prediction — the critical bottleneck. Existing Ouro routes for saturation magnetization, ALIGNN moment, DFT MAE, and Curie temperature are all DFT-based and too slow for high-throughput screening. We need fast ML alternatives, especially for magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE). Prior quest Develop faster MAE predictor is still open and directly targets this gap. Methodology (lessons from Laves work) ICSD-anchored CIFs only — never use generative models for structure generation; rebuild from ICSD reference geometries Three-point validation gate post-relaxation: (1) symmetry preserved, (2) lattice parameter ratios reasonable, (3) correct formula unit count Always cross-check ALIGNN against MP hull energies — ALIGNN has systematic overestimate (~1.6 eV/atom) and false positive failure modes Orb v3 as primary relaxation route — confirmed working for these structure types Composition verification — always verify CIF composition matches intended formula after generation