Best lead: Pierre Ferdinand Poudeu (MSE). His LE3M lab does bulk solid-state synthesis of Heusler alloys and magnetic semiconductors — that's the closest match to our Mn-based, rare-earth-free screening direction. His group published on magnetic full-Heusler nanoinclusions inducing ~650 K ferromagnetism in half-Heuslers, and a 2024 paper on Mn-Sb-Se antiferromagnets (https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4844920). Bulk synthesis lab, likely has arc melting (worth confirming in the email). If we want one Michigan target, this is it.
John Heron (MSE, Ferroelectronics Lab). Complex oxide thin films, ferromagnets, magnetoelectrics, with in-house magnetometry. Relevant work on rare-earth-free Fe-Ga magnetostriction (Nature Communications 12, 2757). More thin-film/thin-film-devices than bulk PMs, but a good fit if we want oxide magnetism or exchange-coupled systems.
Emmanouil Kioupakis (MSE, computational). First-principles electronic structure of functional materials, collaborates with both Heron and Poudeu. His recent output is mostly wide-band-gap semiconductors, so the magnetism angle is a pitch, not a warm thread — but a computational collaborator at the same department as our best synthesis target is useful.
Two situational ones:
Rachel Goldman (MSE) — MBE of dilute magnetic semiconductors and magnetic thin films. She directs the NSF MRSEC "Center for Materials Innovation" (class of 2023), which is a funding-collaboration route more than a PM-synthesis route.
Ctirad Uher (Physics) — long track record in magnetic Heusler thermoelectrics and still co-authors with Poudeu, but verify his status first (PhD 1979; likely emeritus).
The sleeper: Michigan leads a $2.6M DOE Vehicle Technologies Office project (2024, PI Lei Zuo in NAME/ME, with Jun Cui at Iowa State and ORNL) on 3D-printed nanocrystalline soft magnets and gradient permanent magnets that reduce or eliminate heavy rare earths (https://news.engin.umich.edu/2024/06/making-electric-motors-more-efficient-affordable-by-3d-printing-magnets/). That's the closest thing to a standing PM program there, and the kind of group that would care about a public rare-earth-free screening pipeline.
Facilities check: MSE has a Quantum Design DynaCool PPMS (9 T, VSM option, 1.8-400 K) and Chemistry has an MPMS SQUID. So unlike NU (where we had to hunt for the VSM), magnetic characterization is confirmed. Arc melting is the unverified piece — Poudeu's lab is the likely home but I'd ask rather than assume.
Suggested first contact: Poudeu, with the Mn-based screening work as the hook — half-Heusler/Mn-antimonide chemistries overlap directly with what we're already scoring.
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The email leads with his nanoinclusion result (Lu et al., J. Mater. Chem. A 2019, DOI 10.1039/c9ta01156k: Curie temperature near 650 K in a Ti-Zr-Hf-Ni-Sn half-Heusler with 5% Fe, with coherent full-Heusler nanoinclusions doing the magnetic work) and his 2024 Zn-doped MnSb2Se4 antiferromagnet preprint (DOI 10.2139/ssrn.4844920). The ask is deliberately small: one computed-versus-measured comparison, where we compute the magnetic ground state, anisotropy, and Monte Carlo Curie temperature for one LE3M phase of his choosing, and he tells us where the calculation misses the sample. I also asked him the arc-melting question directly.
Two notes from the same list for when the cadence has room:
Next Michigan contacts: John Heron (Fe-Ga magnetostriction, in-house magnetometry) and Emmanouil Kioupakis as a computational bridge in the same department. Rachel Goldman's NSF MRSEC is the funding-collaboration route rather than a synthesis route.
The funding sleeper remains the DOE VTO project (PI Lei Zuo, 3D-printed nanocrystalline and gradient magnets with reduced heavy rare earths). If Poudeu or Heron engages, that is the moment for a sponsor-track note.
Poudeu's follow-up window opens 2026-09-30. CRM row f85e2485-890a-4946-a2f6-10c412c431ba carries the state.
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The hook is his Nat. Commun. 12, 2757 (2021) metastable Fe-Ga work: epitaxy holds the BCC Fe1-xGax phase to 30% Ga where bulk collapses past 19%, magnetostriction up to 10x bulk and 2x the canonical rare-earth magnetostrictors, and 80 aJ per bit implied for the FeGa/PMN-PT composite. It is rare-earth-free magnetics on the soft side rather than hard magnets, so the offer is one computed-versus-measured check on a metastable composition of his choosing: we compute anisotropy and magnetoelastic coefficients against gallium-ordering models, he says where the calculation misses the film.
Two useful facts I found while reading: Heron already co-authors with both Poudeu and Kioupakis (the rutile GeO2 papers), so today's two Michigan emails are one connected thread rather than two cold calls, and his group's May JACS paper on Mn/Cr high-entropy-oxide films is about local structural disorder setting the magnetic properties, which is exactly where our computed anisotropy is least trustworthy and most worth checking.
Kioupakis is the remaining name from your list. I left him for the next open send slot so the three Michigan threads do not all age into the same follow-up week. Heron's CRM row is 6b1f2c30-9d47-4a2e-9b7a-0c5e1f2a4d81.
The DOE VTO project I flagged is real and worth your attention even beyond the email. Lei Zuo's $2.6M, three-year effort is laser powder bed fusion of nanocrystalline soft cores first, then functional gradient permanent magnets with reduced or eliminated heavy rare earths like dysprosium, and the team around it is Hang Z. Yu (Virginia Tech), Jun Cui (Iowa State), Parans Paranthaman (ORNL), and Anand Kulkarni (Siemens). That is the closest thing Michigan has to a standing program on our problem, and the collaborators are a materials-manufacturing chain end to end. I drafted the outreach today and it goes out 2026-10-05, spaced off the Poudeu/Heron/Kioupakis threads so the Michigan follow-up weeks do not collide. The offer is our rare-earth-free candidate shortlist plus one computed-versus-literature comparison on whatever hard phase the gradient magnet targets, with our error bars stated and the coercivity gap said out loud. Their published email is on his ME faculty page, and you and
Correction on Rachel Goldman. I listed her as a funding-collaboration route, and today's scope check says that was optimistic. The Center for Materials Innovation's two interdisciplinary groups are endotaxial 2D polytype heterostructures and covalent adaptable networks, which is semiconductors and polymers. Nothing magnetic is in the funded scope, so a cold email from us would have been generic praise with an ask attached. I put her on hold instead of sending one, with the evidence in the CRM row. If you want that funding route pursued anyway, say so and I will write it properly.
Ctirad Uher is the last name from my list still unverified. I will check whether he is actually retired before proposing anything.