Most conversations about America's critical minerals supply chain stop at the ore body or the separation plant. Josh Robinson, director of the Penn State Materials Research Institute (MRI), works on what comes after: turning purified material into magnets and power electronics. He tells Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor how the U.S. lost its early lead in silicon carbide and what Penn State is doing to rebuild that know-how. He also explains why losing a small amount of gallium would hurt.
Why isn't mining enough on its own?
Josh Robinson, director of the Penn State Materials Research Institute, says mining isn't enough because raw material isn't useful until someone processes it into a finished product. "You can have a barrel of some rare earth oxide," he said, "but until you process it and get it all the way down to the end, it's not really useful." Rare earths and other critical minerals end up in quantum devices, semiconductors, phone electronics and even steelmaking, not just magnets. Robinson's own research uses rare earth elements for single-photon emission in quantum devices. MRI has about 77 staff and nearly 300 affiliated faculty, he says. He calls it part of Penn State's "one-stop shop" under the Penn State Critical Materials Alliance.
How did the U.S. lose its silicon carbide lead?
Josh Robinson says the U.S. lost its silicon carbide lead when universities stopped doing the research and teaching it. American universities led silicon carbide R&D in the 1990s and early 2000s. Then, in his words, "it was kind of decided that all industry would just take it over." Vertically integrated companies kept their knowledge in-house, and no one was training the next generation to grow the crystals. China, meanwhile, invested heavily in research and training, and Robinson says it is now surpassing the U.S. on quality. That matters because silicon carbide is the power semiconductor in electric vehicles, wind turbines and AI data centers. Penn State's response includes pilot-scale facilities that translate lab work directly to manufacturing problems, and its Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance, an industry consortium spanning the supply chain.
What happens if gallium goes away?
"If gallium goes away, we have a massive impact on the power electronics here in the United States," Josh Robinson said. Gallium is a critical mineral, not a rare earth, and as co-host Daniel O'Connor noted, its processing is dominated by China. Robinson explained that gallium nitride, alongside silicon carbide, is used for efficient power management in AI data centers and other high-power electronics. The amounts are tiny, with device layers "ten times thinner than the thickness of one of your hairs." Without gallium, he said, the U.S. would be "really stuck." He said these materials are critical because the supply chain is fragile, so the U.S. needs domestic production or more sources.
What is Penn State doing about rare earth separation and magnets?
Faculty in chemistry and chemical engineering have identified proteins that selectively bind rare earths and precipitate them out, with very high selectivity, according to Josh Robinson. Sarma Pisupati's team at the Center for Critical Minerals runs pH-based hydrometallurgical separation at pilot scale (Pisupati joined us in S1 E24 on Pennsylvania's rare earth potential). Other faculty are working on turning oxides into metals, and Penn State is working with a company to try to bring in smelting equipment. A partnership on next-generation neodymium magnets also came out of the university's critical minerals workshop, and Robinson says faculty are relearning magnet know-how the country once had.
Where will the critical minerals workforce come from?
Josh Robinson says DOE wants universities to double the number of graduates in critical minerals and materials, from mining through processing and manufacturing. Penn State is seeing some increase in materials science, energy and mineral engineering, geosciences and mining engineering, but these are often "discovery" majors that students find after they arrive. Modern mines, he noted, are cleaner and safer and increasingly use unmanned vehicles and machine learning. His advice is to get very good at one thing and learn how it connects to the rest of the supply chain. We covered the same shortage from the mining side in S2 E80: Why America Only Graduates 200 Mining Engineers a Year.
Key Takeaways
- A barrel of rare earth oxide isn't useful until someone can turn it into a finished material.
- Once industry took over silicon carbide, university research and teaching faded, and Robinson says China is now surpassing the U.S. on quality.
- Power electronics use tiny amounts of gallium, but Robinson says losing it would leave the U.S. stuck.
- Robinson calls himself one of the "blue collar PhDs" who work hard for industry, and he invites companies to use MRI's instruments and pilot facilities.
- Robinson says DOE wants universities to double critical minerals graduates across mining, processing and manufacturing.
FAQs
What does Penn State's Materials Research Institute do?
MRI is Penn State's central materials research institute. Director Josh Robinson says it has about 77 staff and nearly 300 affiliated faculty and is the university's most heavily instrumented institute. Companies use its characterization labs to find out what is in their material, from parts per billion of rare earths up to percent levels, and then work with faculty on purification, application and manufacturing.
Why did the U.S. fall behind in silicon carbide?
Robinson says U.S. universities led silicon carbide R&D in the 1990s and early 2000s. After industry took over, universities stopped the research and stopped training crystal growers, while companies kept what they knew in-house. China invested heavily in research and training and, he says, is now surpassing the U.S. on quality.
Why does gallium matter if so little is used?
Gallium nitride is used alongside silicon carbide for efficient power electronics, including in AI data centers. Device layers are ten times thinner than a human hair, but without gallium, Robinson says, U.S. power electronics would be "really stuck."
Is Penn State working on rare earth separation and metallization?
Yes. Robinson says Penn State faculty are developing protein-based methods that selectively bind rare earths, running pH-based hydrometallurgical separation at pilot scale, and working on turning oxides into metals, including an effort to bring in smelting equipment with an industry partner.
Transcript
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Dustin Olsen (00:01)
Hey Josh, welcome to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. How are you doing?
Josh Robinson (00:05)
I'm doing well. Thank you very much for having me.
Dustin Olsen (00:08)
Awesome. We are excited to have you here as well. We're excited for all of our guests to be on the show, in fact, but we're excited to dive into the work that you're doing with the research arm of Penn State, which is the Materials Research Institute, MRI. And you became the director there earlier this year, a few months ago, correct? So we're excited to talk about some of the research that's going on and how it's going to impact the supply chain. And speaking of the supply chain, we talk a lot or we see a lot in the media in around this topic. Critical minerals seems to focus more or stops at the ore body itself. Maybe we get into the separation plant of those materials, but after that, the conversation really doesn't go any further and so I would love to kind of unpack that, kind of the rest of the story, so to speak. So before we get there, Josh, can you just give us a brief history of how you arrived to your new role at MRI?
Josh Robinson (01:15)
Yeah, no, that sounds great. Thanks again for having me. So my journey started as a physics major, back in the late nineties early two thousands, and then went into I got really interested in just materials and how materials impact our world. And that led me to studying materials science and engineering. Actually I was a I'm a I'm an alum of Penn State as well, as many of us are. And as I kind of went through this process of being a postdoc at the Naval Research Lab and then a young researcher at Penn State, diving more and more into all sorts of different types of materials. You'll see my most of my background is in the semiconductor space, but the that allowed me to interact with a very broad range of folks during that time and have a broad network to be able to understand where are things disconnected. And so as I kind of rose through the ranks and on the faculty side. I focused more and more around convening people and convening teams to tackle larger problems. And then that ultimately led me to taking over the directorship here in MRI. And now we have in the institute itself we've got about 77 staff and about almost 300 affiliated faculty goes the entire breadth of materials research, right? We like to think that everything starts with materials, right? And so this is one of those places where we're able to see a broad view of what's happening both on the technology side but then also what on the materials side, what feeds into that technology, enables the technology.
Dustin Olsen (03:06)
That's very cool. So speaking of convening people, shortly after you started in July as the director, you had a group of a hundred and fifty or so people from government, academia, the industry, all come together to talk about critical minerals. What was that like? What did you guys discuss? Were there any outcomes from that meeting?
Josh Robinson (03:33)
No, so it was that meeting was about a year in the making. So before being the director in the Materials Research Institute of Penn State, I was the director for strategic research initiatives in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. And this is a kind of a very unique college. It's only got five departments, but all of the departments are highly interdisciplinary and very focused on basically everything along the supply chain and critical minerals and materials, which is great. And so, you know, from geosciences to geopolitics is the way I like to think of it. And so having that breadth in the college gave me a chance to see what might work for convening so you know a group of people And so during that time we or during the workshop what we did was we looked at the geosciences, right? So the ore bodies, we had some government speakers really, really fantastic, kind of giving us an overview of where, you know, kind of the breakdown of what we see as a breakdown in the supply chain and where we're kind of getting bottlenecks. And then Yeah, more than half were industry. And so they came with, you know, letting us know where a lot of their challenges were, right? And because the as a university, one of the things that we do is we focus on research challenges and try to help answer questions that may be able to advance some technology. Now we have a lot of really fundamental work. That's not necessarily what we're seeing the US government wants to push forward at the moment, but what one of the things that we're really excited about is the fact that the faculty that we have here at Penn State and our partnering institutions really do have a keen eye on solving problems and doing research that will have impact for it for industry. And so one of the outcomes that really came out of that were partnerships with industry. We have we've got a variety of them that are moving forward and also partnerships for writing proposals to the DOE you know both on R&D side but also on workforce development right because that's a critical part of this in all aspects it doesn't matter what technology we're looking at there's a workforce shortage and so you know DOE wants to double the number of graduates coming out of universities now because specifically in critical minerals and materials from mining to processing to manufacturing because the at every single one of these stages there's a lot of a lot of potential impact because of the shortage of just you know smart humans working on hard problems, right?
Daniel O'Connor (06:19)
Yeah, that's a very important topic, Josh, that we talk about pretty frequently. Pennsylvania is a sort of a hotbed of the resurgence of industrial policy in the United States. I mean, that's what we learned early on because there used to be a lot of mines there. There was refining there. You want to talk a little bit about Pennsylvania, Penn State, you know, just the ecosystem and why it's important in the United States for a resurgence of some of these critical material supply chains.
Josh Robinson (06:51)
Yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. You know, PA, the Marcellus Shale, there was a big boom, right? And then there was also a significant amount of coal mining and there's lot of you know, I guess waste piles and acid mine drainage and all sorts of there, you know, a lot of ecological and environmental impact that went with that. And then, you know, we were it's the powder metals process or powder metals capital of the world for a quite a long time, right? And so what we found is over time with technology leaving to foreign countries and you know the workforce and everything declining in our rural areas, that a lot of that knowledge is kind of going away. But the environmental impacts don't go away the everything else that comes with that. So I think we're in a unique position here at the university, partly because we have centers like the Center for Critical Minerals with Sarma Pisupati, right? So I think he was on here before. Bringing you know, bringing back the utilization of these mines and the acid mine drainage and cleaning up the environment, right? And so we're doing that while training students. So it really is a convergence of different technologies. And then of course then once you get them out of the mine or out of whatever waste pile that it's coming from in the Commonwealth, we need to be able to purify it and separate it and purify it into powders that can ultimately then be made into magnets, you know, and all the way down. So I think this is one of the areas that I'm super excited about because Penn State has such a broad breadth of faculty that can have an impact all the way from mining to magnets.
Daniel O'Connor (08:41)
Yes, and on that note, I wanted to ask, in terms of developing the workforce and the flow of students coming in, let's just say over the past, let's say, 12 to 24 months, are you noticing any material change in number of enrolled students, the levels of interest, anything that you could report on?
Josh Robinson (09:04)
Well, so I think I mean it's still early days for trying to drive it up. We are getting we are seeing some increase in the student population in the particular areas, like materials science and engineering, energy and mineral engineering, geosciences, you know, mining engineering. We're one of the mining schools in the United States, you know, land grant part of our mission is training mining engineers. And so I think the and the goal is to double what we are you know the number of graduates in these different spaces a lot of times what we find is that these are more discovery type majors as opposed you know, they just you know, someone comes in to go to mechanical engineering and they say, look, there's materials science in engineering over here. I didn't know that was happening. Like that's a as opposed to being specifically a sought out major and it's similar for, you know, mining historically, just like nuclear. They've it's got a bad rap, right? So the mines of today are very different than the mines of our parents and grandparents and so they're much cleaner safer they're more environmentally mindful and sustainable and so just kind of getting that getting the word out that you know the technology has advanced and everything else is and it's it actually can be a high tech position that folks are going in and you know using unmanned vehicles and you know starting to bring in a AI and machine learning as part of these to enhance our ability to be able to accelerate the extraction, right? So this is all this is all new territory and I think it's very exciting.
Daniel O'Connor (10:52)
Definitely, definitely. Now I wanted to ask you, coming off of the conference you put together and based on the accumulation of programs over the past 24 months, let's say, what is your institution, are there particular strengths that, whether it's government agencies or companies or other institutions want to collaborate? What are some areas that you all feel like you're becoming at the top of the list in terms of capability? Is there any areas that you think you should be bragging about? I think that's important.
Josh Robinson (11:29)
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, impressively enough, we are number one in materials science and engineering in the United States, according to the NSF HERD rankings. So these are rankings by the National Science Foundation. And we are number four in the world in mining. And so, you know, in mining engineering there's a whole list of top ten departments that directly impact the supply chain, including, you know, supply chain analytics, right? So we're in top five for supply chain analytics and just kind of understanding how all of the pieces fit together. So I think there's many opportunities to be able to brag about what we have. I think one of our strongest the One of the things I'm most proud of is the interdisciplinary work that we do. Bring it, you know, so you know I'm working with geoscientists, right, to understand what's going on in rocks, and then working with chemists to be able to extract the minerals out of those rocks and then purify them, or chemical engineers, and then taking it to our materials science folks to be able to turn these into, you know, high purity elements that can then ultimately be fed into, you know, magnets and magnets are a an easy target on here, but rare earths are also important in quantum. They're also important in semiconductors, right? And so you can sprinkle these things like a spice over just about anything, and it may and it has they have unique properties that enable us to get to the next generation iPhone or you know computer or you know, even lower more sustainable manufacturing of steel, right? So it's it literally goes across it. But the main thing I like to see in this is just the breadth of research and we don't have to go anywhere, right? It's a one-stop shop that we've been able to pull together here at Penn State under the Penn State Critical Materials Alliance.
Daniel O'Connor (13:25)
And I would say, we track China a lot. And one of the things that we've really focused on and learned, Joshua, over the past couple of years is how the rare earth, there's two major rare earth centers there and the universities interface with the state-owned companies. And they focus a lot on materials science on leveraging the rare earth elements to advance, you know, steel and other types of materials for hydrogen storage, for example, for new types of textiles, for any range of new types of products that are materials science driven. So you want to talk about the importance of that, that critical minerals, rare earths, these are not just for magnets. They're for many new products that are going to be disruptive. And we don't want to fall behind here.
Josh Robinson (14:18)
No, I totally agree you know, they you can get the you can have a barrel of some rare earth oxide, right? But until you, you know, you process it and get it all the way down to the end, it's not really useful. And so yeah, we're I mean, even in my own research, we're using rare earth elements for single photon emission in quantum devices. You know, so it can go to very, very high tech. And many people I mean our phones, you know, these things they don't they won't function without having the rare earths, not just because of the magnets, but because of all of the other electronic components in there. And so I think it's really key to understand that we've got just about every piece of technology that we use has some type of rare earth or critical mineral type material in it.
Daniel O'Connor (15:10)
Yeah, no, it's very, very important. What do you see as right now, you know, obviously the administration has invested quite a bit in different what we call mine-to-magnet programs. You know, there's sort of a race. How do you see where we're at today and how is your institution, you know, intersecting with some of these projects? Do you, you know, maybe you could drill down a little bit and share with the audience examples of the work you all are doing today, if you can.
Josh Robinson (15:41)
Yeah, sure, sure. I think that's you know, no problem on that. And you know, since talking about magnets, right, one of the things that came out of the workshop, and conversations in that space is we're now working with a company specifically around neodymium type magnets, right? And that use neodymium in them, right? And so developing the next generation form of that and it turns out that you know, we used to have this knowledge, but we don't anymore, right? And so people [stopped] teaching it. So now even the teachers, the faculty and the researchers have to relearn this so we can pass it on to the next generation. Very similar for some of the work that we're doing in silicon carbide as well. That's a it's a critical material based on DOE. It's the critical semiconductor for the energy transition. So it's gonna it replaces silicon for all kind of high power electronics. Any kind of electric vehicle, all the windmills, you know anything that requires high power is requires this semiconductor and you know, what they our I guess our foreign competitors are eating our lunch on some of this stuff, right? And so bringing together companies to look across the supply chain on how do we improve the manufacturability of these materials is key. And so we have a couple of these industry consortiums. Again, my the one I'm specifically talking about is the Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance, that goes up and down the supply chain helping with people for source material or the graphite that goes in to help build and grow these crystals to the slicing and the polishing and everything else, so that we can bring the workforce back that and then just help the small the smaller companies be able to actually have some kind of an impact.
Daniel O'Connor (17:32)
That sounds really fascinating, really, really, really exciting. Dustin.
Dustin Olsen (17:37)
So Josh, talking about the silicon carbide, you've said that you want to put it back on the map. You want the research to be have more importance here. So first, what happened to the research and where do we stand today in your efforts to bring it back?
Josh Robinson (17:57)
Yeah, sure. So we were leading in the R&D on the academic side in the nineties and early two thousands and then I guess the it was kind of decided that all industry would just take it over. And you know, there was really no more research or R&D in this space. There was and after that there was a lot of atrophy and kind of pulling together, you know, the all of a sudden the vertically integrated companies started being built out of these and then all of that knowledge was kept inside. I think we're still we still have phenomenal manufacturing base here. There's a couple there's several companies that are doing fantastic here in the US, but there's no one actually teaching the you know the next generation workforce on how to grow silicon carbide. It's very difficult to make this material. And the demand for it is such that's why it's in a as a critical material in the critical semiconductor. And so what's happened then is that we've kind of fallen behind, you know, for instance, China has caught up and now they're surpassing us in terms of the quality of the silicon carbide. They put tons and tons of research and R&D and training into this particular space. And it's the same for all the rare earths as well, right? Just what we're you Daniel was talking about in terms of they have these centers and they're staying focused and driving forward on the materials science part of it. And so what we're trying to do now is bring that back both in for the silicon carbide part of it is do the research at industry scale. So we've got pilot scale facilities so that it can be directly translated from what we're doing in a laboratory to what we're doing to what's really needed for the industry, right? So these pilot scale research experiments that allow us to help them with their manufacturing challenges and do a direct translation.
Daniel O'Connor (19:54)
Just to follow up, sorry Dustin, follow up question. So it's silicon carbide, right? And this is a very hard material, right? Very hard. And is it lab-made or is there any material, I mean obviously there's silica, right? Is it silica-based or is it?
Josh Robinson (20:15)
So silica is silicon and oxygen, right? And so this is silicon and carbon. And so what they typically would do is take ultra high purity sand, silica, and then combine it with graphite and then heat it to more than half the temperature of the surface of the sun and then and so this is one of the manufacturing challenges, right? You gotta go super hot with this. And then the oxygen and the silicon leads and the silicon and carbon combine bond together. And so but that's just the start of where you need to get to make these crystals so for the advanced electronics that people are using in power modules. And actually it's even in like AI data centers now. The all the power they require, you have to use You're using things like silicon carbide and gallium nitride for these the power, I guess efficient power, right? And so it comes back to gallium then. If gallium goes away, we have a massive impact on the power electronics here in the United States. And people don't often think about that. But again it's we don't use lots of gallium in these technologies. It's just a you know a sprinkle here and there. You know, you're growing these, you're making these layers that are ten times thinner than the thickness of one of your hairs but they're so important for power management in the data centers and everything else that if we were to lose things like gallium, then we're really stuck.
Daniel O'Connor (21:43)
Well, just quickly, again, gallium, correct me if I'm wrong, is separate. The silicon carbide doesn't need gallium, the gallium, and that's true, that's a critical mineral, not a rare earth, but we write about that as well, Josh. It's extremely important, and that as well is pretty much dominated by China in terms of the processing.
Josh Robinson (22:09)
Nope, that's right. And so this is these are things where I know DOE and DOW they're putting a lot of effort into and funding towards this, right? Because we have to get to a point where the we are not relying on a single source of this. I mean the reason they're critical, right, is because the supply chain's fragile, right? We need to diversify where we're getting these materials from. If we can't get them or make them here in the United States or mine them in the United States, then we need to have a variety of different places they're coming from, right? And that's part of the supply chain analytics and driving that forward.
Daniel O'Connor (22:45)
Definitely, definitely. Sorry, Dustin, I cut you off.
Dustin Olsen (22:49)
No, you're just fine. So Josh, I'm curious. It sounds like you guys are doing phenomenal work from a research perspective. You're getting young minds interested in this work. You're working with industry and governments. Is there any reciprocation or like what I mean by that is do you have companies partnering with the university, with the MRI, specifically to benefit from what you guys are doing. We hear very little of such partnerships and I'm just curious if you see it and if it if you're not, why do you think that is?
Josh Robinson (23:29)
So we're seeing we're seeing a significant increase in that, right? So MRI, the Materials Research Institute is made up of a of three different facilities as well. So we're the heaviest instrumentation institute at the university. So we have a whole suite of you can think of them as quality control tools, right? We can call them materials characterization equipment and instruments that companies come to Penn State to basically see what's in their material, right? What do they got, right? And then that can help them identify how what the next steps are in terms of getting it out, whether they're platinum group metals or they're rare earth elements. So the we're we actively encourage folks to come to Penn State, to MRI, and work with us to understand what they've got, and then we can also help them go down the path of purification and then application and manufacturing. So I would say it the last couple of workshops that we've done have really helped bring knowledge to the industrial base that we're here to help. You know there's a lot of analytical companies out there to do testing and things like that and we've got we have world experts that can help you see parts per billion of these rare earths all the way up to percents and beyond. And so I think they we do have a lot of connections in industry but we're always
Dustin Olsen (25:06)
That's good. I think it's encouraging to see, as you called it earlier, these vertically integrated companies reaching out to understand how they can improve their own processes or solutions. And I think that's great. I think it's that sort of outreach, that sort of community connection will help us overcome some of these immediate hurdles that we have in front of us to become more self reliant. So that's really encouraging.
Daniel O'Connor (25:38)
Dustin, wanted to, Josh, a couple key bottlenecks that the United States faces, and we report on this and talk about it a lot, are separation of rare earth oxides. And a big challenge there is, you've got to make all of them, but it's easy to make four of them. It's easier to get what they call the Fab 4 NdPr but then you have a host of these exotic ones that you actually need, but it's really hard to derive them or separate them. And then the economics of it is tricky. And then there's also a bottleneck in the metallization, turning the oxides into metals. Can Penn State and your institute help both with the rare earth separation? On the one hand and then also in the metallization. Are you active in these areas at all?
Josh Robinson (26:32)
Absolutely. We have we've got some I literally was just had a meeting with a company and about half a dozen to a dozen faculty here, all focused on extraction of the rare earth and then selectivity of the extraction, right? So like you're saying, you can get a you can get this mixed bag of rare earth oxides, and but then the question is how in the world do you separate them so you can send them down each feedstock, you know, be the feedstock for the individual, you know, application or just purification and so we've got we have faculty in chemistry and chemical engineering actively working on even like they've developed new biological I guess compounds or molecules. And they've identified some proteins that will selectively bind with these rare earths in the separations and then they will precipitate them out. And they're we're getting I think the latest he said was it was either a hundred thousand or a million to one selectivity. Very, very high selectivity. I'd have to go back and look at the exact number, but they the you know, we've got some really bright faculty that are driving that forward and then on top of it, I mean, so even before we get there, right, we have folks like Sarma doing the separation and based on pH hydrometallurgy at the pilot scale plant. And then on the purification and the metallization, yeah, turning oxides into metals, we have additional faculty that are looking at that as well. And we're currently working with a company to try to bring in equipment to for smelting as well. And so trying to bring that back, right? Because if we're going to do things at these critical materials and turn them into something useful, then we need to be able to do the purification and metallization.
Daniel O'Connor (28:18)
That's exciting. And any projects that have published results, let's keep in touch and we'll publish and amplify those because it's important, very important.
Josh Robinson (28:27)
Absolutely. That sounds great. And we'd love to your entire listening audience, we'd love to have them come to Penn State, right? So and see what we have to offer. So
Daniel O'Connor (28:38)
Yes, 100%, Dustin.
Dustin Olsen (28:43)
So Josh, as we're we've been talking about the industry, governments, students, I would like to get your take really quick on what's the thread, what's the message you really want to get across to the industry and governments out there?
Josh Robinson (29:01)
So I think the big thing is to understand that the universities, especially I mean Penn State, you know, is the one that I will obviously be waving the flag for, but universities in general are there to help solve the manufacturing challenges. Not necessarily at scale all the time, right? But There's a lot of really talented faculty out there that know how to solve these problems like selectivity, and they are happy to transfer the technology to industry so that we can move it forward faster. And you know, I like to I like to think of what we do at MRI as you know discover, develop, and transform the world. And so that's what we I hope that people take away from this is that you know the universities are really thinking hard about this both on the research side but also on the workforce development side whether it's you know getting certificates or micro credentials to doing two year degrees four year degrees or even PhDs right so there's a lot to a lot to be had here so I wouldn't discount a university just because it's you know an ivory tower. There's a lot of there's a lot of blue collar PhDs like myself that work hard to make sure we do something for industry.
Dustin Olsen (30:19)
That's amazing to hear and I think that was well put. Now, switching gears just a little bit, what sort of encouragement or message would you give to that person who's in their early twenties, thinking they want to go into this, they're not sure is there money, is there a future in this? What would you tell them?
Josh Robinson (30:41)
Well, critical minerals and materials are not going away, that's for sure, right? And so unless we go back to the stone ages, that we're going to need these materials for you know every step of technology moving forward. So I think all along the supply chain, whether you want you're interested in geosciences and mining, or you know, quantum technologies or policy, right? So science policy is a thing that we really need to keep driving forward. There's find one thing that you're passionate about in this space, get really good at it, but then when you do that, also understand how it connects to everything else. I think that's a that's a key part of this, right? And a key differentiator for those people that are really successful is they can see deeply a problem and how to work on that, but they also see how it connects to everything else. Because if we're working on something and we don't know how to hand that off to the next person down the line, then it kinda dies in darkness, right?
Dustin Olsen (31:42)
It's true. I tell people though, what I lack in depth I'd make up in shallowness. So
Josh Robinson (31:48)
That's fantastic. It's inspirational.
Daniel O'Connor (31:51)
I was just going to add to that, Josh. I think we're headed for an economic boom. I mean, if you think about it, we have to do this, right? It's not acceptable to leave the supply chains controlled by an adversary anymore. You know, and right now, if you just take a look at rare earths, China processes about 98% of the heavies and maybe 90% of the total blend, right? That has to switch to 20, 30, 40% ex-China, right? So, I mean, you just do the math. You go get a degree in one of these professions. You're gonna do very, very well.
Josh Robinson (32:33)
Yep. No, I totally agree. And I think there's — you know, people are going away from computer science now because AI's coming in, right? And there's other, you know, this is an example of where people are kind of not focused on it, but there's no way that the same is going to happen for the these critical minerals and materials. I see that it's you know, it's these are truly foundational positions and foundational jobs that are gonna be out there for a very long time. And we just need to work our rear ends off to get these folks trained so they can get out there make a difference.
Daniel O'Connor (33:12)
Yeah, I totally, totally agree with you.
Dustin Olsen (33:16)
Absolutely. And Josh from Daniel and I, we just wanna thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show, share your perspective and also what you guys are doing at MRI and Penn State to truly better the industry through effective research and education. We look forward to the greater impact in the years to come that you guys are gonna have on the industry 'cause We're gonna need it and a lot of it.
Josh Robinson (33:49)
That sounds great. Thank you very much for having me and y'all are invited to come to Penn State any time.
Dustin Olsen (33:54)
Perfect. We just might hit you up on that. Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks again, Josh. And we'll hopefully we'll have you again on the show in the future to give us an update on progress. And for those who would be interested in connecting with you and the work that you guys are doing, where is a great place for them to go?
Josh Robinson (34:15)
So they can go to mri.psu.edu, so that's the Materials Research Institute. They can just directly contact me. I'm happy to provide my contact information. Just even just Googling my name and Penn State. Send me an email. You know, I think these are that we're I'm all about connecting people, all right? And you know, it's com you connect people, then you create impact and that's what we're that's what we want to do.
Dustin Olsen (34:42)
A hundred percent. Couldn't agree more. Awesome, Josh. Thanks again for being here and we'll talk to you soon.
Josh Robinson (34:49)
Wonderful, thanks.
