help! Advice needed

S

stormshadow

New Member
Hi all,

I'm so confused about all this green card stuff. I'm thinking about self sponsoring through the NIW but i'm not sure if i'm a good candidate. Please read through and give me any help/advice that you can

1) Im from the UK and currently working at a university on a H1B visa as a scientist (virus stuff)

2) I have a PHD from cambridge university (UK), graduated in 2005, been working in the USA for 1.5 years

3) I have 7 first author papers and 3 reviews, one of which will be a chapter in a prominent academic encyclopedia.

4) membership of 2 professional organisations

5) Our work is paid for by the NIH, NIAD and Dept of Defence

6) Basically my work revolves around developing new anti-virals for the treatment of viral diseases and for the treatment incase of a biological warfare / terrorist incident. I have been instrumental in testing the 2 new drugs. Furthermore, I have conducted basic research into the transmission of viruses that currently cause human disease and that are listed by the governemt as likely viruses that could be engineered to be weaponsied.

7) i beleive I could get 6/7 letters of recomendation: 2 from the companies whose drugs i test, 1 from a DoD official, 1 from the NIH, 1 from the NIAD and 1 from my boss (professor) - also maybe 1 more from another academic.

Do you think this is good enough for NIW? What else would I be expected to show / Do?

Thanks in advance for your time and help
:)
 
Overall it looks pretty good for NIW. How frequenly have your papers been cited? Citations is a big factor these days (even more so than publication #). If you read the earlier posts from this forum, you may find that many friends here with very decent numbers of publications and still got RFE, mostly due to low citations. Furthermore, it will help you greatly if one or two (or more) citations specifically discussed your work rather than just footnote citations. The other thing is independent recommendation letters - try to get letters from people you do not know personally but only know you through your work. The USCIS love independent letters. Finally, how selective are your professional organizations? If the only thing you need to do is to pay them to get the membership, then don't bother to memtion it - the adjudicators are aware of them these days. Remember, everything comes down to "demonstrate your ability to serve the national interest to a substantially greater extent than the MAJORITY OF OTHERS IN YOUR FIELD." Good luck!
 
Hi!

When you are looking at how good your case could be, always come back to what you have to demosntrate:

* The foreign national’s work is in an area of substantial intrinsic merit;
I don't foresee any problem for you: developing new anti-virals for the treatment of viral diseases and for the treatment incase of a biological warfare / terrorist incident is definitely good enough.

* The proposed benefit of the foreign national’s work is national in scope;
Same thing for this one.

* The foreign national will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker having the same minimum qualifications.
As you probably know, this last criterion is always more difficult to prove. It is where your own achievements (articles, citations, ..) will help.

Remember however that NIW essentially bypasses the Labor Certification. You have not been on your H1B for very long. Why would you and your current lab want to bypass this Labor Certification step? It is one of the questions the USCIS is likely to ask, and it is not very clear what could be answered in your case.

I am puzzled... Your university wouldn't have any problem to go to the normal LC process with your profile and area of research, as there is no need to go fast in your case. What is your university's position with respect to the future of your employment?

Chris
 
update

Thanks for your advice guys. I have seen RFE come up all over the place. Im wondering what it is????

My prof organisations aren't that selective, they take anyone with the money and a PhD - you do ahave to apply, and get voted in, but this is usually just some formal process. Their aren't really any organisations in my field that are exclusive - except the Nat Accademy of Science and they only elect a handful of people a year.

ChrisV
I haven't asked my employer to help me with the LC because i'm not sure how long I want to stay with them. If im granted a GC it is likely I would move elsewhere but stay in the same research area. I wanted NIW merely for my own convenience, but you make some valid points.

I will look into getting the LC through the university, but i imagine they would only do that if they intended to give me a perm job,

Thanks guys
 
Low citations - any estimate?

CD4help, you mentioned RFE because of low citations. From your experience, can you please give an estimate of what is considered low? Are 100 citations considered good or low? I ask because I am considering to apply and have about 90 and would like to know if that is enough.

Thanks in advance for your response.
 
gc_app07 said:
CD4help, you mentioned RFE because of low citations. From your experience, can you please give an estimate of what is considered low? Are 100 citations considered good or low? I ask because I am considering to apply and have about 90 and would like to know if that is enough.

Thanks in advance for your response.
Click to expand...
90 to 100 citations is a very decent number for NIW. As I mentioned earlier, it will be even more impressive if some review articles (e.g. News and Views from Nature, etc.) specifically discussed your work. By the way, just like the reference letters, the USCIS do seem to check whether the citations are independent or self-citations. Of course, if the majority of your citations are independent then it does not hurt to have a couple of self-citations, and I believe that is your case. Good luck!
 
Indeed, even in the academic world (not just the USCIS!), self-citations are looked at when the average number of citations per paper is low (around 5 or less).

In addition to giving a total number of citation, is its good to emphasize the few papers which have a high number of citations. At 20 or more, self-citations don't play much role.

100 citations from 20 papers at 5 citations each does not look as good as 30 citations from each of 3 papers and 5 citations from a few more papers.

Chris
 
ChrisV said:
Indeed, even in the academic world (not just the USCIS!), self-citations are looked at when the average number of citations per paper is low (around 5 or less).

In addition to giving a total number of citation, is its good to emphasize the few papers which have a high number of citations. At 20 or more, self-citations don't play much role.

100 citations from 20 papers at 5 citations each does not look as good as 30 citations from each of 3 papers and 5 citations from a few more papers.

Chris
Click to expand...
Excellent points, Chris!
 
stormshadow said:
Probably a stupid question, but, how does one calculate how many citations they have?
Click to expand...

Goggle Scholar is a good way to go, which can be easily checked by the USCIS.

http://scholar.google.com/schhp?tab=ws

Here are the first two paers By E. Einstein you get:

Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? - all 4 versions »
A Einstein, B Podolsky, N Rosen - PHYSICAL REVIEW Phys Rev, 1935 - APS
In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of
reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the
possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system. ...
Cited by 4106 - Related Articles - Web Search - Library Search

[BOOK] Meaning of relativity, The - all 13 versions »
A Einstein - books.google.com
It is hard to find anything to say about the most famous scientist ofall time
that you don't probably already know. His father was a largely unsuccessful
engineer who kept starting businesses and going bust, then moving on to ...
Cited by 682 - Related Articles - Web Search - Library Search

Put your name instead of Albert's and you will get what you need.

Chris
 
Thanks a lot, CD4help and Chris for your responses. I have a couple of papers that have 25+ citations but others have relatively few (single digits).

CD4help - I am planning to go the EB1 OR route rather than EB2 NIW. I guess I would need more than 100 citations to have a good application. Thing is I recently finished my Ph.D (2006) and my university is willing to apply for me; however I just do not have enough years of experience and thus papers (and opportunities to review others papers).

Thanks again.
 
See my posting on the other thread EB1-OR - Do I qualify? answering your comment on not staying with your current university if you get a GC...
 
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