dismissed EB-1A Case: Materials Science

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 8468315 
Appeal of Nebraska Service Center Decision 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: MAY 28, 2020 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Extraordinary Ability) 
The Petitioner, a graduate student at the time of filing, seeks classification as an alien of extraordinary 
ability. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b )(1 )(A), 8 U.S.C. 
§ l 153(b)(l)(A). This first preference classification makes immigrant visas available to those who 
can demonstrate their extraordinary ability through sustained national or international acclaim and 
whose achievements have been recognized in their field through extensive documentation . 
The Director of the Nebraska Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish that the Petitioner had satisfied at least three of ten initial evidentiary criteria, as required . 
The matter is now before us on appeal. 
In these proceedings , it is the Petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the requested benefit. 
Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
Section 203(b )(1 )(A) of the Act makes immigrant visas available to aliens with extraordinary ability 
if: 
(i) the alien has extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or 
athletics which has been demonstrated by sustained national or international 
acclaim and whose achievements have been recognized in the field through 
extensive documentation , 
(ii) the alien seeks to enter the United States to continue work in the area of 
extraordinary ability, and 
(iii) the alien's entry into the United States will substantially benefit prospectively the 
United States. 
The term "extraordinary ability" refers only to those individuals in "that small percentage who have 
risen to the very top of the field of endeavor." 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(2). The implementing regulation 
at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3) sets forth a multi-part analysis. First, a petitioner can demonstrate sustained 
acclaim and the recognition of their achievements in the field through a one-time achievement (that 
is, a major, internationally recognized award). If that petitioner does not submit this evidence, then 
they must provide sufficient qualifying documentation that meets at least three of the ten categories 
listed at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(i)-(x) (including items such as awards, published material in certain 
media, and scholarly articles). 
Where a petitioner meets these initial evidence requirements, we then consider the totality of the 
material provided in a final merits determination and assess whether the record shows sustained 
national or international acclaim and demonstrates that the individual is among the small percentage 
at the very top of the field of endeavor. See Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2010). 
II. ANALYSIS 
When she filed the petition in June 2018, the Petitioner was a Jraduate research assistant studying in the 
I I Devices Laboratory at I University in I I Tennessee. In 
August 2018, the Petitioner received her doctorate and began working as a postdoctoral research associate 
au I National Laboratory in I , trennessee. 1 
Because the Petitioner has not indicated or established that she has received a major, internationally 
recognized award, she must satisfy at least three of the alternate regulatory criteria at 
8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(i)-(x). The Petitioner claims to have met four criteria, summarized below: 
• (iii), Published material about the alien in professional or major media; 
• (iv), Participation as a judge of the work of others; 
• (v), Original contributions of major significance; and 
• (vi), Authorship of scholarly articles. 
The Director found that the Petitioner met the two criteria numbered (iv) and (vi) of the evidentiary 
criteria. On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that she also meets the other two claimed criteria. After 
reviewing all of the evidence in the record, we agree with the Director that the Petitioner has met only 
two of the four claimed criteria. We explain our findings below. 
Published material about the alien in professional or major trade publications or other 
major media, relating to the alien 's work in the field for which classification is sought. 
Such evidence shall include the title, date, and author of the material, and any necessary 
translation. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(iii) 
The Petitioner submits copies of 19 online articles, the first of which is essentially a press release from 
I Is own website. The other 18 articles (none of them credited to individual authors) are all 
derived from thel I article, sometimes reworded or paraphrased, but in most cases copied word­
for-word, including the title of the article. The Petitioner contends that the websites that reproduced or 
1 The appointment is inherently temporary, for a maximum of three years. 
2 
adapted I I's press release constitute major media, but the record indicates that the sites are 
essentially aggregators of outside content. 
Entitled' 'thel I article describes how 
I I of black phosphorus produce small amounts of electricity from movements. These principles 
could eventually result in the devices being incorporated into clothing to power low-energy devices, but 
this is described as "[ o ]ne of the more futuristic applications of this technology," which is still at a 
preliminary, proof-of-concept stage. 
The common source article froml I is not about the Petitioner. It names the Petitioner as one of 
two students who "co-led the effort to make and test the devices," but apart from this identification, the 
Petitioner's name does not appear again except in the caption to a group photograph. The article also 
indicates that an associate professor atl I "directed the research," and quotes him at length. 
Another! !faculty member credits that associate professor with the "advances in materials and 
I t' that the article describes. 
The regulatory language requires the published material to be "about the alien," and also "relating to the 
alien's work in the field." These are two separate characteristics; neither implies or encompasses the 
other. A collective and anonymous reference to a research team may relate to the work of those 
researchers, but it is not about any specific member of that team. 
Evidence of the alien's original scient#fic, scholarly, artistic, athletic, or business-related 
contributions o_f major significance in the.field. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v) 
In order to satisfy this criterion, petitioners must establish that not only have they made original 
contributions, but also that those contributions have been of major significance in the field. For 
example, a petitioner may show that the contributions have been widely implemented throughout the 
field, have remarkably impacted or influenced the field, or have otherwise risen to a level of major 
significance. The phrase "major significance" is not superfluous and, thus, it has some meaning. See 
Silverman v. Eastrich Multiple Investor Fund, L.P., 51 F. 3d 28, 31 (3rd Cir. 1995) quoted inAPWU 
v. Potter, 343 F.3d 619,626 (2nd Cir. Sep 15, 2003). 
A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policy memorandum states: 
Although funded and published work may be "original," this fact alone is not sufficient 
to establish that the work is of major significance. For example, peer-reviewed 
presentations at academic symposia or peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals that 
have provoked widespread commentary or received notice from others working in the 
field, or entries (particularly a goodly number) in a citation index which cite the alien's 
work as authoritative in the field, may be probative of the significance of the alien's 
contributions to the field of endeavor. 
USCIS officers should take into account the probative analysis that experts in the field 
may provide in opinion letters regarding the significance of the alien's contributions in 
order to assist in giving an assessment of the alien's original contributions of major 
3 
significance. That said, not all expert letters provide such analysis. Letters that 
specifically articulate how the alien's contributions are of major significance to the 
field and its impact on subsequent work add value. Letters that lack specifics and 
simply use hyperbolic language do not add value, and are not considered to be probative 
evidence that may form the basis for meeting this criterion. 2 
The Petitioner describes her research in technical detail in a 15-page statement. She states, for example: 
"I successfully fabricated thd I composite foam 
for I ~ battery cathodes with high areal loading and high areal capacity by I • I 
infiltration method for the first time." 
The Petitioner has submitted several letters which describe her work in highly technical detail, but which 
do not clearly explain why the Petitioner's work is of major significance in the field. For example, a letter 
signed by the Petitioner's doctoral research advisor includes this passage: 
Our lab has pioneered the design of a battery technology-based._! _____ ___.I system 
for generating electricity from human motions. The Petitioner dedicated her effort to 
the innovative design and fabrication of the L_ _______ ,...,.........,""""'- ........ .!..><.l<..., 
.__ ______ _. systems. She is the first scientist to integrate .__ ____ _. black 
phosphorus as electrode for llsystem by using electrophoretic deposition. By 
incorporating two identical c=Jhfack phosphorus electrodes, the device exhibited 
power and energy output of 42 nW/cm2 and 0.792 µJ/cm2, and is capable [of]working at 
frequencies at low as 0.01 Hz. 
The writer asserts that the Petitioner's work is of value "to fulfill the goal of developing better energy 
storage devices," but does not fully explain why the Petitioner's contributions, in particular, are of major 
significance in achieving that goal. 
Also, the Petitioner was one member of a research team. Journal articles relating to the work described 
above have five credited authors. The Petitioner is a co-owner of two U.S. patents; she is one of six 
named inventors for each. The letter describes the projects themselves, but does not specify the 
contributions that the Petitioner (rather than her collaborators) made to those projects. 
Different researchers (with varying degrees of first-hand familiarity with the Petitioner's work) signed 
the letters in the record, but there are some indications that the letters are not all of independent origin. 
Some letters share similarities in formatting ( such as passages highlighted in bold type) and phrasing. For 
example, the letter quoted above also includes this passage: 
[The Petitioner] has also been invited and has served as an expert reviewer to judge 
the works of her peers for scholarly journals in the field. She was invited and peer­
reviewed manuscripts submitted to the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nanotechnology 
2 USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0005.1, Evaluation of Evidence Submitted with Certain Form 1-140 Petitions; 
Revisions to the Adjudicator's Field Manual (AFM) Chapter 22.2, AFM Update ADJ 1-14, 9 (Dec. 22, 2010), 
http://www. uscis. gov /legal-resources/policy-memoranda. 
4 
and Materials Research Express. These journals aim to publish papers at the forefront of 
I I materials science and technology and especially those of an interdisciplinary 
nature. To be publishable in these journals, papers must meet the highest scientific quality 
standards, contain significant and original new science, and should make substantial 
advances within a particular area ofl I science and technology. 
A separate letter, attributed to a professor at ~I --~I University, includes a mostly identical passage: 
[The Petitioner] has served as an expert reviewer to judge the works of other 
scientists publishing in highly regarded journals in the field. 
[The Petitioner] was invited and served as an expert reviewer for the journal 
Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology aims to publish papers at the forefront ofl I 
materials science and technology and especially those of an interdisciplinary nature. To 
be publishable in this journal, papers must meet the highest scientific quality standards, 
contain significant and original new science, and should make substantial advances within 
a particular area otj !science and technology. 
By way of comparison, the following statement appears in the Petitioner's own statement: 
I have been invited and served as an expert reviewer for manuscripts submitted to peer­
reviewed journal-Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology aims to publish papers at the 
forefront ofl I science and technology and especially those of an interdisciplinary 
nature. To be publishable in this journal, papers must meet the highest scientific quality 
standards, contain significant and original new science, and should make substantial 
advances within a particular area ofl lscience and technology. 
In response to a request for evidence, the Petitioner submitted a letter signed by her advisor at~I ---~ 
National Laboratory. That letter contains the following passage: 
Using 
I I, and their mixture, [the Petitioner] compared the electrochemical 
performances of I I composite anodes with controlled defect density. She 
further conducted a systematic analysis of the defects-related formation of different 
alloying products. 
A nearly identical passage had previously appeared in the Petitioner's introductory letter: 
I compared the electrochemical performances of I I composite anodes with 
controlled defect density by usinu,-_____________ ___.,I I 
~----------~' and their mixture, and further provided systematic analysis 
of the defects-related formation of different alloying products. 
5 
The use of identical language across various letters from supposedly different sources can diminish 
the weight and credibility of the assertions in those statements. 3 
It also bears mentioning that several of the letters rate the Petitioner highly, but only in a limited 
comparison to "her career stage" as an "emerging early-career scientist." An achievement that is 
unusually significant for a graduate student may be less consequential in the context of the entire field, 
which includes many experts with decades of experience. 
As noted in the cited USCIS policy memorandum, a "goodly number" of articles that "cite the alien's 
work as authoritative in the field, may be probative of the significance of the alien's contributions to 
the field of endeavor." 4 The Petitioner states that the number of citations to her published articles 
establish the importance of her work. The Petitioner provides a table of baseline citation rates from 
Clarivate Analytics, indicating that citations to several of the Petitioner's papers exceed the average 
citation rates for papers in the broad categories of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Engineering. An 
above-average citation rate, however, is not necessarily indicative of major significance in the field. 
Averages alone cannot suffice without ranges to show how the Petitioner's published work compares to 
the most-cited articles. 
In response to a request for evidence, the Petitioner showed that one of her articles "received enough 
citations to place it in the top 1 % of the academic field of Materials Science based on a highly cited 
threshold for the field and publication year." This notification, however, was dated "[a]s of 
November/December 2018," several months after the filing date. The Petitioner does not submit similar 
evidence from before the date of filing. The Petitioner must meet eligibility requirements as of the date 
of filing. See 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(l). 
The Petitioner submits percentile figures on appeal, relating to citation rates, but these figures are from 
2019 and do not show where the Petitioner stood as of the filing date in June 2018. 
The same printout that refers to the Petitioner's article as "highly cited" also shows the citation totals for 
30 of the 59 articles that the Petitioner and her co-authors cited in that article. At the time, the Petitioner's 
article had 54 citations. Of the 30 listed sources, 25 had more than 54 citations; 6 of those articles were 
cited more than 1000 times each. The evidence indicates that the Petitioner's work falls within a narrow 
research area that, overall, has attracted significant interest and attention in the field, but it does not show 
that the Petitioner's work is of major significance within that same area. 
The Petitioner also submitted percentile rankings for page views of some of her articles, compared to 
other articles that appeared in the same issues of the respective journals. The Petitioner does not establish 
a direct correlation between page views and citation, or other measurable indicia of impact. 
3 See Surinder Singh v. BIA, 438 F.3d 145, 148 (2d Cir. 2006) (upholding an adverse credibility determination in asylum 
proceedings based in part on the similarity of the affidavits); see also Mei Chai Ye v. US. Dep 't. of Justice, 489 F.3d 517, 
519 (2d Cir. 2007) ( concluding that an immigration judge may reasonably infer that when an asylum applicant submits 
strikingly similar affidavits, the applicant is the common source). In evaluating the evidence, the truth is to be determined 
not by the quantity of evidence alone but by its quality. See Matter of Chawathe, 25 l&N Dec. 369, 376 (AAO 2010) 
(quoting Matter of E-M-, 20 l&N Dec. 77, 80 (Comm'r 1989). 
4 USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0005.1, supra. 
G 
The Petitioner submits a table comparing the citations of her papers from 2017 and 2018 to the citations 
earned by three other "highly esteemed scientists" during the same period. The Petitioner does not 
establish that those three individuals constitute a representative sample. 
The record shows that, at the time of filing, one of the Petitioner's fellow graduate students at~I ---~ 
had nearly 60 more citations than the Petitioner, despite publishing a slightly smaller number of articles. 
The other student's h-index and i-10 index (which track overall citation rates rather than the performance 
of individual articles) are also higher than the Petitioner's indices. 
Among the articles that cite to her work, the Petitioner draws special attention to six "important review 
articles published by prestigious publications, which reported, commented and cited [her] research 
contributions." Unlike other articles that report on original research and cite source material for 
background, these review articles report on recent literature pertaining to a particular area of interest. 
Each review article contains, on average, more than 190 citations. The articles do not indicate that the 
cited sources were chosen because of their importance or influence, as opposed to their relevance to the 
subject under review. 
The review articles offer different degrees of evaluation of the Petitioner's work. An article in 
ChemistrySelect, which "focus[es] on some of the effective strategies in boosting the electrochemical 
performance ofl ~," states that the Petitioner's "article offers an effective and 
broadly adaptable method to establish different~----~building blocks for cell electrode 
materials." The Petitioner's article is one of at least six cited in the section headed 'I t' 
Several other review articles focus on describing, rather than evaluating, the research in the articles 
reviewed. 
Apart from scholarly literature, the Petitioner contends that her work has also attracted attention from the 
mainstream press, the most prominent example of which appears to be an online article from NBC News. 
That article describes research into' clothes" by several different groups, one of which 
is the Petitioner's research team at I I The article identifies the faculty member in charge of the 
research, but does not mention the Petitioner individually. Likewise, the other submitted articles (many 
of which are further distillations ofl 6 press release) identify I I but not the Petitioner. 
Because the articles do not distinguish the Petitioner from other anonymous members of the research 
team, they cannot serve to identify specific contributions that the Petitioner personally made. 
In denying the petition, the Director determined that the Petitioner has not shown the extent to which her 
work has influenced the field, for example through use of her patented technology. On appeal, the 
Petitioner asserts that the Director unreasonably called for evidence of widespread use of her work. The 
Petitioner, however, deals in applied science and engineering. Given that the Petitioner has pointed to 
her patents as evidence of her contributions, it is relevant to consider how the patented technology has 
been put into use. The regulation calls for evidence of original contributions of major significance. 
Patents, on their own, attest to originality rather than significance. 
7 
The Petitioner's work concerns the generation and storage of electricity, which is an area of significant 
interest with practical applications that affect many areas of everyday life. It is not enough, however, to 
work in an important area, or to study at a well-regarded institution. The Petitioner played a key role in 
a research project that I I publicized in a press release, which several news outlets then carried, 
but the results reported in that press release were tentative and preliminary, with disclaimers about the 
work that remains to be done before commercial implementation becomes possible. 
Likewise, the field's interest in certain types of battery technology have led to citations of some of the 
Petitioner's articles, but the evidence made available to the Director was highly selective and does not 
show recognition of the Petitioner's work, in particular, as having major significance. The Petitioner 
notes that researchers in several different countries have cited her published work, but this geographic 
distribution does not inherently attest to the significance of the work cited. 
The Petitioner continues to engage in promising work that could lead to important new practical 
applications, but she has not shown that, as of the time of filing, she had made original contributions of 
major significance in the field. 
The Petitioner has not submitted the required initial evidence of either a one-time achievement or 
documents that meet at least three of the ten criteria. As a result, we need not provide the type of final 
merits determination referenced in Kazarian, 596 F.3d at 1119-20. Nevertheless, we advise that we 
have reviewed the record in the aggregate, concluding that it does not support a finding that the 
Petitioner has established the acclaim and recognition required for the classification sought. 
The Petitioner seeks a highly restrictive visa classification, intended for individuals already at the top 
of their respective fields, rather than for individuals progressing toward the top. At the time of filing, 
the Petitioner was still a graduate student. As of this adjudication, her postdoctoral training is still 
ongoing. As noted previously, letters in the record indicate that the Petitioner is "at the very top of the 
field comparing [sic] to her peers in the same field as [sic] emerging early-career scientist," and "has 
risen to the very top of her field at her career stage." The regulatory threshold, however, is the very top 
of the field, not the very top of "her peers" "at her career stage." The Petitioner cannot arbitrarily exclude 
the most experienced and accomplished members of her field when establishing her standing in that field. 
We have already explained why the Petitioner has not satisfied the requirements of 8 C.F.R. 
§ 204.5(h)(3)(iii), relating to published material about her. Beyond the prior discussion, it is 
significant that all the submitted published material appeared in late July 201 7. Other deficiencies 
aside, a single burst of media attention is not strong evidence of sustained acclaim. 
Similarly, when the Petitioner filed the petition, more than half of her total citations related to one 
article, published in 2014. Had the proceeding reached a final merits determination, we would have 
taken into account that the record does not establish a consistent pattern of heavily cited articles as of 
the filing date. 
The Petitioner continues to perform valuable work, but the earliest stages of a promising career in an 
important field are not tantamount to sustained national or international acclaim. 
8 
III. CONCLUSION 
For the reasons discussed above, the Petitioner has not demonstrated her eligibility as an individual of 
extraordinary ability. The appeal will be dismissed for the above stated reasons. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
9