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Retrospective Cycle 25 (catalysis screening) completed all four items cleanly with the standard pipeline. The PV cycle 24 is 3/4 done with the email draft in progress on its own quest (019f5df0). The sponsor outreach sprint (Sloan, Renaissance, Simons) on quest 019f62a9 remains at 0/4 and untouched. Multiple contacts are becoming due for follow-ups (Moore Foundation ~July 16, Wei Li July 15), which are tracked on existing quests and will be executed during heartbeats. The Oliynyk call took place today; any follow-up will be scoped as a new quest if needed. Focus Two tracks in this plan: Sponsor prospect: Schmidt Futures. Schmidt Futures (Eric and Wendy Schmidt's philanthropic initiative) explicitly funds AI-for-science programs, computational infrastructure, and open research tools. They are not in the CRM and not on any existing quest. They are a natural fit for Ouro's computational materials platform, and a warm, specific outreach email can advance the capital track independently of the Sloan/Renaissance/Simons items already queued on quest 019f62a9. Researcher cycle: #physics. The #physics team (019841de) has never had a dedicated paper-driven outreach cycle. A recent paper on ML-guided discovery or computational screening of quantum/topological materials, strongly correlated systems, or emergent phenomena in crystalline materials would bring the established pipeline (CIF generation, Orb v3 relaxation, MP convex hull, ALIGNN) into a domain where the cross-domain ML failure audit has limited coverage. This extends the audit into quantum materials and connects to the superconductors and permanent magnets teams' existing work. What This Plan Does Not Cover The sponsor items on quest 019f62a9 (Sloan, Renaissance, Simons) stay there. The PV email draft on quest 019f5df0 stays there. The catalysis paper-driven analysis on quest 019f6128 stays there. Follow-up waves for contacts due July 15+ stay on their respective quests. The Oliynyk call follow-up, if needed, will be a new quest. Pipeline The established four-step outreach cycle adapted for physics/quantum materials: (1) select a recent paper with 3-6 crystallographically characterized compounds, (2) generate CIFs and run them through Orb v3 relaxation with P1 collapse check, MP convex hull, and ALIGNN routes, (3) publish an analysis post in #physics comparing ML model behavior to prior cycles across all tested domains, (4) draft a personalized email to the corresponding author and log in CRM dataset 019ee292. The sponsor item runs in parallel as a standalone deliverable.
Retrospective The previous plan (Cycle 24, photovoltaics) completed 3 of 4 items cleanly: the CRM follow-up wave went out, the Nielsen et al. paper on ZnSnP2 polymorphs was deep-read, and an analysis post was published in #photovoltaics finding Pnma collapse under Orb v3. The email draft to Nielsen/Dimitrievska remains in_progress on that quest, waiting for the next heartbeat. Meanwhile, the 019f6128 catalysis cycle (created earlier today with the improved paper-driven analysis approach) has all 4 items pending and will be worked as separate quest work. What This Plan Covers This plan shifts focus to the sponsor outreach track, which has been underdeveloped relative to the researcher pipeline. The researcher side now has over 120 CRM contacts across multiple domains and cycles. The sponsor side has 5 prospects contacted (Schmidt Sciences replied, ARPA-E/Khosla/DCVC sent, BEV blocked), but three identified prospects remain uncontacted: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Renaissance Philanthropy / Open Source for Science Fund, and the Simons Foundation MPS Collaborations program (which has an LOI deadline of October 29). @mmoderwell directed going "all in" on outreach across both tracks on June 18. The researcher track has been running consistently; the sponsor track needs a dedicated sprint. This plan also includes a CRM follow-up audit to catch any contacts that have crossed the 7-day (researcher) or 14-day (sponsor) follow-up window since the last wave on July 13. Focus Areas Sponsor emails. Each email follows the established voice rules from Suhas Mahesh's feedback: prose not bullets, shorter sentences, no hedging, no "I hope this finds you well" filler, opens with the sponsor's mission not ours, costs rounded to nearest $5K. Each translates a specific community open question into a fundable opportunity with honest stage framing. The next step is always a conversation, not a commitment. Simons Foundation MPS. This is the highest-stakes sponsor prospect because of the October 29 LOI deadline. It needs program-specific research before drafting: what the MPS Collaborations program funds, what their LOI process looks like, and how to align Ouro's computational materials community with their priorities. This item is research-heavy relative to the cold-email items. CRM follow-up audit. Contacts sent around July 7-8 (researchers) are now past the 7-day window. Any qualifying contacts get their one allowed follow-up with a fresh angle. This is housekeeping but time-sensitive: every day a follow-up is overdue is a day we might lose a warm contact to silence. Negative Constraints No duplication of pending items on quests 019f5df0 (Cycle 24 email), 019f6128 (catalysis cycle), 019f536c (Ahlquist email, MOF sponsor draft), or 019f53a3 (Sanyal draft). No materials science research work (screening chains, bias correction, DFT/MLIP calculations) per @mmoderwell's June 18 direction. Every sponsor email personalized to one funder referencing their specific program and thesis. No templated sends. One follow-up per person, then stop. No second follow-ups. No new researcher outreach cycle in this plan. The catalysis cycle on 019f6128 covers fresh researcher outreach.
Retrospective The previous cycle (24, photovoltaics) shipped cleanly: paper selected, CIFs generated, routes executed, analysis post published, email drafted and CRM logged, all within a single quest lifecycle. The compact four-item pipeline works when tooling cooperates. The main recurring blocker has been the Resend MCP email tool failing intermittently, which delayed follow-up sends in two prior ticks. This plan prioritizes the single most time-sensitive collaboration over a new outreach cycle. Context Anton Oliynyk (Hunter College, CUNY) replied positively to outreach on 2026-07-02. He offered to rank synthesizability of our RE-free magnetic intermetallic candidates using his recommendation engine and try synthesizing some in his lab. He has collaborators working on RE-free boride permanent magnets. A reply was sent (email 6627ae2f) proposing a call the week of July 13, suggesting July 14 or 16, with @mmoderwell invited to join. Oliynyk's team is CC'd: [email protected], [email protected]. Before the call, we need a curated dataset of approximately 20-30 RE-free magnetic intermetallic candidates with formation energies, hull distances, magnetic properties, and CIF files. The candidates should be drawn from prior screening work in #permanent-magnets: MnB-type monoborides (Pnma): MnB, CrB, FeB, CoB screened in the FeB-type family dataset (019eb92d). MnB is ICSD-anchored (file 13407c5a). Cu₂Sb-type Mn compounds (P4/nmm): Mn₂Sb, MnAlGe, MgMnGe, KMnP. CIFs already exist for Mn₂Sb (ba60c123), MgMnGe (20a0b5e7), KMnP (c52d576a). MnAlGe was identified as top priority with Tc≈505K. MAB phases (Cmmm): Mn₂AlB₂, Fe₂AlB₂, Cr₂AlB₂. All ICSD-anchored CIFs exist (cc3a45a8, 0010b12f, e84ef414). Gate 1 confirmed E_hull=0.0 for all three. C14 Laves (Fe-Mn-Si system): Mn₂Si, Fe₂Si, MnFeSi. CIFs generated in prior cycles, though structural fragility was documented. Other candidates from the calibration anchors dataset (019ec158): tau-MnAl L1₀, MnBi, FePt L1₀, CoPt L1₀. This is not new research. It is packaging existing results into a presentable, synthesis-ready format that Oliynyk can run through his synthesizability ranking engine and select targets for lab synthesis. What This Plan Does Not Cover Pending follow-up waves (Okabe/Li due July 12, Yuk/Lee due July 14, Moore/Astera due July 16) stay on quest 019f42b4. Cycle 23 analysis pipeline and email draft stay on quest 019f53a3. The Robredo email approval stays on quest 019f42b4. The catalysis prospect research stays on quest 019f4ddc. None are copied forward.
Retrospective Cycle 21 ran clean end-to-end: the Fe₂VAl thermoelectric Heusler analysis post is live in #thermoelectrics with 25 route executions and a clear comparison to the Ru₂TiSi cycle, the Parzer email draft is shared for approval, and the Renaissance Philanthropy sponsor email draft is also posted. The compact four-item pipeline pattern (paper → analysis → email → sponsor) continues to work well. The main improvement this cycle: MOFs are a structurally different beast from anything we've tested so far (open frameworks, large unit cells, organic linkers), so the analysis should surface genuinely new information about how Ouro's ML models handle these systems, not just repeat the validation loop. What This Plan Covers This plan runs cycle 22 end-to-end in the MOF domain and drafts a fresh sponsor outreach email. It does not touch pending items on other quests: the Walsh email approval (019f47d5, waiting until July 12), the Zakaryan email approval (019f48e8, waiting until July 12), the July 13-14 follow-up wave (019f480c, waiting until July 13), the Parzer email approval (this quest, just closed), the blocked audit update and catalysis prospect items (019f4ddc), or the GGen polymorph post (019f4ddc). Cycle 22: ML-guided MOF discovery. This is the first outreach cycle targeting the #mofs team. MOFs are a natural test bed for Ouro's ML models because they invert most assumptions from dense intermetallic screening: open frameworks with large unit cells (>100 atoms), organic linkers that introduce chemical complexity beyond what ALIGNN and Orb v3 were trained on, and property targets (surface area, pore volume, gas adsorption) that go beyond formation energy and band gap. The cycle follows the established pipeline: deep-read a recent paper with specific MOF structures, generate CIFs, run Orb v3 relaxation with P1 collapse check, run MP hull energy and ALIGNN formation energy routes, and publish an analysis post in #mofs. The key question: do models that collapse on Laves phases and preserve symmetry on Heuslers behave yet differently on open-framework structures? Sponsor outreach email draft. Both previously identified sponsors (Sloan Foundation, Renaissance Philanthropy) have been drafted on prior quests. This plan identifies a new sponsor prospect aligned with materials ML, open science, or clean energy — likely Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Science program, supports data-intensive discovery), Wellcome Leap (ambitious quantitative science programs), or Breakthrough Energy (climate technology). Draft a personalized email translating a specific community open question into a fundable opportunity. Negative Constraints No duplication of pending items on quests 019f47d5, 019f48e8, 019f480c, or 019f4ddc. No materials science research work (screening chains, bias correction, DFT/MLIP calculations) per @mmoderwell's June 18 direction. Cycle 22 analysis routes are outreach-driven content creation, not open research. Every email personalized to one person referencing their specific work. No bulk sends. Sponsor email must target a different sponsor than Sloan Foundation (drafted on 019f4ddc) or Renaissance Philanthropy (drafted on cycle 21). Per @mmoderwell's July 9 feedback on the agents team post: the analysis post should aim to surface something novel about model behavior on MOFs, not just validate known properties. Lead with the finding, not the pipeline.
Retrospective The previous quest (cycle 17: Aron Walsh) completed 3 of 4 items in a single session — the compact pipeline pattern continues to produce efficiently. The SKY synthesis API integration was a strong differentiator for that cycle, giving the analysis post and email a concrete platform capability to demonstrate beyond property predictions. The Walsh email draft is now waiting on @mmoderwell approval (due July 11). The cycle 18 analysis post on Waheed et al.'s Li₂YZ Heusler topological semimetals was published on quest 019f480c, but no email outreach item was created for it — that gap is the first item in this plan. The follow-up waves (July 10-11 and July 13-14) remain calendar-triggered on quest 019f480c and are not duplicated here. Focus: Cycle 18 email completion + cycle 19 analysis pipeline This plan has two parts. The first is lightweight: draft and send the Waheed et al. outreach email using the already-published cycle 18 analysis post as the hook. The analysis post (019f4886) showed that Orb v3 preserves F-43m symmetry across all six Li₂YZ inverse Heusler compounds and that Li₂CdGe sits on the convex hull — a clean, positive result worth sharing with the authors. The second part launches cycle 19 targeting a research group in a domain not yet covered across cycles 1-18. Prioritized candidates: Weyl semimetals (connects to #physics, natural extension of the topological materials work in cycles 15 and 18), solid-state electrolytes (connects to #solid-state-batteries, a team with no outreach yet), or MOF/CO₂-reduction catalysis (connects to #chemistry). The cycle 19 paper selection item will pick one domain, find a specific recent paper with crystallographic data, and proceed through the standard pipeline: deep-read, CIF generation, Orb v3 relaxation with P1 collapse check, MP convex hull, applicable property prediction routes, analysis post, and email draft. What this plan does not cover The July 10-11 and July 13-14 follow-up waves remain on quest 019f480c. The Walsh (quest 019f47d5) and Robredo (quest 019f42b4) email drafts remain pending @mmoderwell approval on their own quests. The DCVC sponsor follow-up remains on quest 019f438b. None of these are copied forward.
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.
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.