Niron Magnetics

Technical Advisory Board

Matthew Kramer
Director III (Division of Materials Science & Engineering) at Ames Lab, Department of Energy.

Terry Lowe
Research Professor (Metallurgical and Materials Engineering) at Colorado School of Mines. Founder and President of Figure 8 LLC.

Eric Fullerton
Professor at UC San Diego. Director, Center for Magnetic Recording Research. National Academy of Engineering.

Emmanuel De Moor
Assistant Professor (Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering) at Colorado School of Mines.

John Ormerod
Former VP at Arnold Magnetics, responsible for corporate new product development.

Stan Trout
Technical consultant to the magnetics industry. Former Director of Magnetics Business at Molycorp.

Steve Constantinides
Former Director of Technology at Arnold Magnetics.

Walt Benecki
Business consultant to more than 100 clients who are actively engaged in the magnet industry.

Orlando Rios
Member of Research Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Andy is Chief Executive Officer at Niron Magnetics, joining the company in May of 2017. He is responsible for overall strategy, R&D direction, market development and finances for the company. Prior to joining Niron, Andy spent six years as Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Cisco Systems and nearly two decades as Senior Vice President and Managing Director at The Boston Consulting Group, where he worked extensively with a wide range of technology firms. His expertise is in new market identification and development, business models and pricing and business process optimization.

He earned a BSE, Magna Cum Laude, in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, an MS in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering with a concentration in automatic control systems from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Andy Blackburn

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Frank Johnson joined Niron Magnetics in March 2018.

Prior to Niron, he worked for 13 years at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY as a Materials Scientist in the Ceramics and Metallurgy Technologies organization. Dr. Johnson’s research has focused on magnetic materials used in power generation, distribution, and conversion technologies. This has included permanent magnets used in electrical motors and generators, amorphous and nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials used in electrical transformers and inductors, and magnetocaloric alloys used in magnetic refrigeration systems.Prior to joining GE, he had a joint D.C.I./N.S.F. post-doctoral fellowship in the Metallurgy Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD.

He earned a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from M.I.T.

Frank Johnson, Ph.D.

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Jian-Ping Wang is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Niron Magnetics. Concurrently, he is also the Robert F. Hartmann Endowed Chair and Distinguished McKnight Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota, with joint appointments in the Physics, Chemical Engineering, and Materials Science departments. Dr. Wang is an IEEE Fellow, and received the information storage industry consortium (INSIC) technical award in 2006 as well as the UMN outstanding professor award for undergraduate teaching in 2010. He has published more than 280 peer reviewed journal and conference papers and has authored more than 50 granted and pending patents. His inventions have seen broad applications in hard disk drive and magnetic random-access memory products.

Jian-Ping Wang, Ph.D.

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John is Vice President of Manufacturing at Niron Magnetics. He led the setup of Niron’s Industrial Lab facility, as well as development of the team and manufacturing methodologies. Currently, in addition to operations management, he is focused on R&D project management. Prior to Niron, John spent 10 years in the semiconductor industry within R&D and operational roles supporting commercialization of innovative technologies in advanced Silicon CMOS (Cypress Semiconductor) and Gallium Nitride epitaxy (International Rectifier/Infineon). Before this, he spent 7 years as Principal Scientist at a semiconductor startup (Spinnaker Semiconductor).

After completing a B.A. in Math and Physics at St. Olaf College, Dr. Larson received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in Mechanical Engineering at the Center for Plasma Aided Manufacturing, where he studied gas and surface chemistry effects for synthetic diamond processing. He also holds a Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean Knowledge Certificate from the American Society for Quality.

John Larson, Ph.D.

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Yiming Wu is the Director of Research and Development at Niron Magnetics. His experience with FeN-based magnetic materials has spanned nearly a decade. Currently, Dr. Wu is leading the technology transition from university research labs to Niron’s industrial facility. Before joining Niron, he was a post-doctoral fellow at University of Maryland and worked as a senior materials scientist at a startup sensor technologies company.

He received B.S., M.S. degrees from Peking University in China, and a Ph.D. in Engineering from University of Minnesota. His specialties in advanced materials research include development of advanced alloys and ceramics for mechanical, biomedical, and aerospace applications. Dr. Wu has been granted multiple patents related to novel materials innovations.

Yiming Wu, Ph.D.

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Xiaowei Zhang is a Principal Development Engineer at Niron Magnetics. His role is the synthesis and development of precursor materials for iron-nitride magnets, as well as advanced materials characterization. Prior to joining Niron, Dr. Zhang’s research focused on the investigation of giant saturation magnetization in Fe16N2 thin films at University of Minnesota.

He received his B.S. in Physics at the University of Science and Technology of China and Ph.D. Degree in Physics at University of Minnesota.

Xiaowei Zhang, Ph.D.

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Bio coming soon.

Fan Zhang, Ph.D.

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Chad Carda is the Senior Equipment Engineer at Niron Magnetics, assuring all the tools in the industrial facility are functioning optimally and working to improve their efficacy where possible. Prior to Niron Magnetics, he was a Vacuum Equipment Engineer at Seagate Technology in a semiconductor wafer fab for over 13 years working with metal and alumina deposition platforms and magnetic annealing ovens. In this role, he supported the automation of data collection and lockouts for several tool sets. Before Seagate, he worked at Ionbond and Vergason Technology, where he designed, built, and maintained PC/PLC controlled physical vapor deposition equipment for over 10 years.

Chad earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota State University in Brooking, South Dakota.

Chad Carda

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Rich is the Senior Engineering Technician at Niron, where his focus is on end-to-end process improvement and stabilization. Prior to joining Niron Magnetics, he worked in 3M’s Corporate Materials Research and Process Research Labs for nearly 10 years, where he helped develop capacitive touch sensor technologies. He also has experience in pressure-sensitive/structural adhesives, web handling, and automated optical inspection.

Rich earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.

Rich Greger

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Blake Wolf is an Engineering Technician at Niron, where his primary focus is the physical and magnetic characterization of FeN materials across a variety of techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, magnetometry, and x-ray diffraction. Blake received his B.S. degree in Physics at the University of Texas – Austin and his M.S. degree in Materials Science at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.

Blake Wolf

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Scott Goodnough is a Metrology Technician at Niron Magnetics. He has been an Engineering/Quality Technician for 30+ years with a focus on process improvement and optimization using Lean Manufacturing principles. Before joining Niron, he worked at Seagate Technologies (22 yrs), Emerson Network Power (2 yrs), and Infineon Technology (6 yrs).

Scott has been professionally recognized for quality improvements and has received cost savings awards for his process improvement innovations.

Scott Goodnough

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Our Team