Materials engineer and inventor · Ames, Iowa
Alexander Goldman, Ph.D.
I invent materials and build the means to make them.
- 01A magnesium alloy family with a filed patent application.
- 02Open source software that metallurgists use.
- 03A laboratory built from an empty room.
I am looking for conversations with founders, investors and operators in materials, manufacturing and hard technology.
Magnesium alloy design · laser powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition process development · SEM, EBSD and TEM characterization
What I do
I hold a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University, and a bachelor's in materials science and engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno. My doctoral work produced a rare-earth-free magnesium alloy family: I designed the compositions, cast and extruded them, heat treated them, and then found out through mechanical testing and electron microscopy why one composition was both stronger and more ductile than the last. A patent application on that family is filed.
The work runs end to end, which is the part that matters commercially. I have built a micro-industrial laboratory from an empty room: vacuum induction furnace, wire EDM, three-axis CNC, lathe, electropolishing and electron microscopy. I am usually the first in a group to learn a technique, and then I write the procedure down and train everyone else on it. I host tours of our shared additive laboratory for visitors of every technical background, which is where the metallurgy has to be explained rather than measured.
I am a chronic problem solver, which mostly means I do not stop at the behavior. I stop at the cause.
I am now moving that work toward commercialization, and I take part in the startup community in central Iowa. If you are building something where materials or manufacturing decide whether it works, that is the conversation I want.
Selected projects
Rare-earth-free Mg-Al-Bi alloys
2023 to 2026A magnesium alloy family that gains strength and ductility at the same time, which those two properties usually refuse to do together. Bismuth suppresses the Mg17Al12 precipitate and aluminum suppresses twinning; the combination is what buys both. Designed, cast, extruded, heat treated and tested in our own laboratory, then published in Materials Science and Engineering: A.
Machine-learned potentials for lightweight and shape-memory alloys
2026Quantum-mechanical calculations are accurate, and far too slow for the hundreds of thousands of atoms a deformation study needs. I train machine-learned interatomic potentials on those calculations, using the ACE and MACE frameworks. Each potential is tested against properties it never saw in training before it is trusted in large molecular dynamics runs, for lightweight alloys and for shape-memory alloys.
Coloring simulated crystals by orientation
2026, open source
Atomistic simulations produce millions of atoms and no picture a metallurgist can read. This software turns them into the pictures we already know how to read: EBSD-style inverse pole figure maps, pole figures and orientation densities, in the same EDAX and TSL color key an EBSD detector would give, verified against orix to 2 parts in 100,000. It has a command line, a local web interface and tests that run on Linux, Windows and macOS.
Multiscale digital twin for metal additive manufacturing
in progressA simulation stack for wire and powder directed energy deposition on a robot arm, and for laser powder bed fusion, intended to run beside the real machine rather than after it: machine data feeds the simulation, and the simulation feeds back process parameters worth trying.
A micro-industrial laboratory
2023 to 2026Specified, installed and now operate the equipment an alloy study needs from beginning to end: vacuum induction melting, wire EDM, three-axis CNC milling, metal lathe, heat treatment, electropolishing, and sample preparation for electron microscopy. Written procedures for each, and the training that goes with them.
Publications
Goldman, A., Xu, Z.G., Li, B., Liao, Y.L., Jordan, A. (2025). Effect of alloying elements on the mechanical behavior of extruded Mg-Al-Bi alloys. Materials Science and Engineering: A. 10.1016/j.msea.2025.148941
Li, B., Goldman, A., Xu, J. (2023). Reactive diffusion of lithium in silicon in anode materials for Li-ion batteries. Materialia. 10.1016/j.mtla.2023.101796
Schoelmerich, M.O., et al., including Goldman, A. (2023). Developing a platform for Fresnel diffractive radiography with 1 µm spatial resolution at the National Ignition Facility. Review of Scientific Instruments. 10.1063/5.0101890
Rahman, M.H., Werth, H., Goldman, A., Hida, Y., Diesner, C., Lane, L., Menezes, P.L. (2021). Recent progress on electroactive polymers: synthesis, properties and applications. Ceramics. 10.3390/ceramics4030038
Experience
Research Assistant, Iowa State University
2023 to 2026- Ran a full material qualification study: alloy design, vacuum induction casting, extrusion, heat treatment, mechanical testing and microstructural characterization.
- Designed heat treatments to control intermetallic precipitate morphology, and measured what each one did to the mechanical response.
- Designed and analyzed structured experiments to connect process to microstructure to properties, with the statistics done in Python.
- Built and operate the laboratory the work runs in.
Research Intern, Polish Academy of Sciences
2023Research Assistant, University of Nevada, Reno
2021 to 2023- Fabricated micron-scale optics by focused ion beam milling for a National Ignition Facility beamline, published as the Fresnel radiography platform above.
Research Intern, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
2021Makerspace Consultant, University of Nevada, Reno
2019 to 2021Education
Ph.D., Industrial Engineering
2026B.S., Materials Science and Engineering
2021Awards and credentials
First place, graduate poster
2025Fundamentals of Deep Learning
2025Six Sigma Green Belt
2024Certified SOLIDWORKS Associate
2020Eagle Scout
2017
Contact
Write to me. I answer.