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.