A graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants in all fields
What do Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Colin Powell, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Carnegie, General Shalikashvili, Madeleine Albright, and Isabel Allende all have in common? They are all either immigrants or children of immigrants, and they all have made immeasurable impact on the United States. Whether it was through discovery, literature and culture, law, business, or government, these individuals represent the remarkable contributions that continuing generations of New Americans make to our country every day.
Founded by immigrants, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans (PD Soros) is a graduate school fellowship exclusively for young New Americans who are early in their careers and pursuing a graduate degree full-time in the United States.
Every year, the PD Soros program awards 30 fellowships to the most promising New Americans. Each selected Fellow receives up to $90,000 in financial support over one to two years of their graduate studies. More importantly, they join a lifelong community of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows who demonstrate the diverse contributions that immigrants and children of immigrants from all over the world make to the United States.
“We many thousands of past and present proud immigrants to this great country did not have the choice of choosing our place of birth or choice of parents. We did have the choice to be called immigrants by birth and Americans by choice. We were always Americans in our hearts.” — Alfred Rascon, a native of Mexico, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and former director of the Selective Service
Veterans
Learn about seven Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows who have served in the United States armed forces and gone on to graduate school: Javier Galvan (2017 Fellow), Akhil Iyer (2018 Fellow), Hamid Nasir (2018), Raj Shah (2004 Fellow), Thomas Sy (1999 Fellow), Khalil Tawil (2014 Fellow), and Mark Minghao Xue (2015 Fellow).
- Javier Galvan was a sergeant in the Marine Corps and pursued both a medical degree at UC San Francisco and a master's in public health degree at Johns Hopkins University
- Akhil Iyer was fortunate to work with a remarkable group of Marines, Sailors and Soldiers while serving as a Marine Corps infantry officer and special operations team commander before pursuing an MBA/MPP at Harvard University
- Hamid Nasir is a Captain in the Army and pursued a law degree at Georgetown University
- Raj Shah was a pilot in the Air Force, received his MBA from Wharton, and was the managing director of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx)
- Thomas Sy was in the Army and won awards as a distinguished honor graduate of the Primary Leadership Development Course, the Special Forces (Green Berets), and the Egyptian Arabic Language Course
- Khalil Tawil was an officer in the Army, founded Umi Kitchen, and pursued law and business degrees at Yale University and Harvard University respectively
- Mark Minghao Xue was an officer in the Marine Corps, received his MS in computer science from Stanford University, and is now a privacy engineer
