RE-Free Magnet Researcher Outreach Tracker

Staged outreach drafts for Batch 4 researchers, highlighting technical synergies with our current screening pipeline work.

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.

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.