The board of directors of The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a merit-based graduate school program for immigrants and children of immigrants, announced the program’s 2021 Fellows, including a dozen with Harvard connections. Chosen from a pool of 2,445 applicants — the most the program has ever received — the 30 fellows will each receive up to $90,000 in funding to support their graduate studies.
Eligible New Americans include green card holders, naturalized citizens, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, individuals born abroad who graduated from both high school and college in the United States, and the U.S.-born children of two immigrants.
“The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows demonstrate the immense contributions that immigrants of all backgrounds make to the United States. Each 2021 Fellow is a reminder of what is best about this country. Their stories and work fill me with a deep sense of hope for our nation’s future,” fellowship director Craig Harwood said of the new Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows.
Twelve College alumni and current graduate students were selected to join the 2021 class:
Charlie ChangWon Lee ’19, M.D. ’24
Hassaan Shahawy ’16, J.D. ’22
Pooja Chandrashekar ’18, M.D. ’23
Ryan Dz-Wei Chow ’16
Alaleh Azhir, M.D. ’24
Archana Podury, M.D. ’24
Brian Y. Chang, M.D.
Enrique Toloza, M.D./Ph.D. ’26
James Diao, M.D. ’23
Syed Mahmud Raza Rizvi, J.D. ’24
VK Vu, M.B.A/M.P.P. ’23
Raie Gessesse, M.P.P. ’23
In addition to receiving funding for the graduate program of their choice, the fellows join a prestigious community of past recipients, including U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Olympians Amy Chow and Patricia Miranda, computational biologist Pardis Sabeti, and more than 680 Fellows.
Founded by Hungarian immigrants, Daisy M. Soros and her late husband Paul Soros, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans program honors the contributions of continuing generations of immigrants in the United States.
To read the full bios of the 2021 Fellows, visit www.pdsoros.org.
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