On January 4^th, 2017, we received another EB-1A (Alien of Extraordinary Ability) approval for a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Field of Optical Physics (Approval Notice).

General Field: Optical Physics

Position at the Time of Case Filing: Postdoctoral Researcher

Country of Origin: India

State of Residence at the Time of Filing: Tennessee

Approval Notice Date: January 4^th, 2017

Processing Time: 13 Days (Premium Processing Requested)

Case Summary:

Thanks to Premium Processing (PP), a postdoctoral researcher from India only waited 13 days for the USCIS to approve his EB-1A (Alien of Extraordinary Ability) petition. PP is a service offered by the USCIS whereby petitioners need not wait longer than 15 days for action to be taken on their cases. By paying an additional fee of $1,225, it a great option for those who are unwilling or unable to wait 4-9 months.

Seeing that EB-1A is one of the toughest visa categories to secure petition approval, we made sure that our client met at least 3 out of the 10 requirements set by the USCIS before taking on his case. Once we confirmed that we could build a good EB-1A argument for him, we got to work on his petition. These are the criteria we chose to focus on:

1. Authorship of scholarly articles in the field, in professional or major trade publications or other major media: When we filed his case, our client had already published 10 scientific articles in well-known journals.
2. Original scientific, scholarly, artistic, or business-related contributions of major significance: Thanks to Google Scholar, we determined that our client’s work had already gathered 289 citations at the time of filing.
3. Participation, either individually or on a panel, as a judge of the work of others in the same or an allied field of specialization for which classification is sought: Our client’s impressive peer review record (20 peer reviews on behalf of several prominent journals) proved the value of his insights to other researchers in the field of optical physics.

All of this was supplemented by five recommendation letters contributed by other expert physicists, one of whom wrote, “[Client] is an irreplaceable contributor to the field of optical engineering. He has broken new ground in the field at the doctoral level and has only continued to flourish since. Granting [Client] permission to remain in the United States—where he has already made some of his most pioneering advances—is the best possible means by which to ensure that revelatory optical methodologies and applications are fully developed and commercialized across the nation and world.”

As we were able to prove the value of our client’s research (on the development of optical instruments and techniques for detection and diagnosis in biomedical, engineering and industrial applications) to the United States, the USCIS was persuaded to approve our client’s EB-1A petition. We thank our client for working with us not just on his EB-1A petition, but also on his I-485 application. As we wait for the USCIS to take action on his application, we wish him the best as he continues to progress the field of optical physics.