Materials & Process Intern – R&D

Vulcan Elements is manufacturing American rare-earth permanent magnets to support a secure and resilient future. With a focus on national security and economic resilience, we serve critical industries including defense, aerospace, and automotive—powering next-generation technologies. We are building a team of ambitious professionals committed to Mission Focus, Technical Excellence, and Transparency.

As a Materials & Process Intern on the R&D team, you will support the development of advanced metallurgical processes and equipment, contributing to both experimental work and process optimization.

Responsibilities

• Safely operate within a pilot manufacturing and R&D environment, working hands-on with air-sensitive materials.
• Support materials and process development initiatives through experimental and analytical work.
• Characterize materials and process outputs to understand relationships between processing, structure, and properties.
• Optimize process parameters to meet target performance and quality requirements; evaluate process windows and establish operating setpoints.
• Contribute to the development of core equipment and next-generation manufacturing processes.

Responsibilities and tasks outlined are not exhaustive and may change as determined by the needs of the business. 

Required Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Materials Science & Engineering, Physicochemical Sciences & Engineering, or a related STEM field.
• Coursework or hands-on experience with materials characterization techniques.
• Laboratory or manufacturing experience with strong attention to detail.
• Familiarity with data analysis tools such as Python, MATLAB, or similar.

Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export-controlled information or facilities. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to metallic or magnetic materials systems.
• Experience with characterization techniques such as TGA-DSC, XRD, SEM, EDS, or EBSD.
• Prior experience in an academic or industrial laboratory environment.

Processing & Laboratory Skills (Preferred)

• Experience with powder processing techniques (e.g., ball milling, sieving, blending).
• Familiarity with tube furnaces, gloveboxes, or inert atmosphere processing.
• Experience handling air-sensitive materials.
• Basic understanding of thermal processing (annealing, heat treatments, solid-state reactions).
• Ability to follow safe lab practices in environments involving gases, powders, and high temperatures.

Learning Opportunities

• Gain hands-on experience with advanced materials characterization methods.
• Work with real-world manufacturing data and process optimization challenges.
• Receive mentorship from experienced materials, process, and manufacturing engineers.