Ikenna Nlebedim is a scientist at Ames National Laboratory and a deputy lead in the Developing Substitutes Focus Area of the Critical Materials Institute. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He obtained his PhD from Cardiff University, United Kingdom, and has nearly 10 years of experience in recycling of critical elements from waste materials.

As a principal investigator and group leader at Ames National Laboratory, he leads research efforts on novel technologies for recycling rare earths, lithium, cobalt and other critical elements. He led the research effort that developed the novel environmentally-friendly acid-free dissolution recycling process. Ikenna also performs research on the development, modeling and functionalization of magnetic materials, including rare earth permanent magnets for different applications.

He currently serves in the IEEE Magnetic Society as the Chair of the Young Professionals and a member of both the Technical and also Administrative Committees. His contributions to research have been recognized with various awards including R&D100, Federal Laboratory Consortium, TechConnect Innovation, Ames National Laboratory Inventor and Iowa State University Research Excellence awards.