dismissed EB-1A Case: Materials Science And Engineering

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PUBLIC copy 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
20 Mass. Ave., N.W., Rm. A3042 
Washington, DC 20529 
WAC 04 249 52276 
PETITION: 
 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability Pursuant to Section 
203(b)(l)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 8 1153(b)(l)(A) 
ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER: 
SELF-REPRESENTED 
INSTRUCTIONS: 
This is the decision of the Administrative Appeals Office in your case. All documents have been returned to 
the office that originally decided your case. Any further inquiry must be made to that office. 
$ Robert P. Wiemann, Director 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DISCUSSION: The employment-based immigrant visa petition was denied by the Director, California Service 
Center, and is now before the Administrative Appeals Office on appeal. The appeal will be dismissed. 
The petitioner seeks classification as an employment-based immigrant pursuant to section 203(b)(l)(A) of the 
Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act), 8 U.S.C. 5 1153(b)(l)(A), as an alien of extraordinary ability in 
the sciences. The director determined the petitioner had not established the sustained national or international 
acclaim necessary to qualify for classification as an alien of extraordinary ability. 
Section 203(b) of the Act states, in pertinent part, that: 
(1) Priority Workers. -- Visas shall first be made available . . . to qualified immigrants who are aliens 
described in any of the following subparagraphs (A) through (C): 
(A) Aliens with Extraordinary Ability. -- An alien is described in this subparagraph 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 to the United States will substantially benefit prospectively the 
United States. 
As used in this section, the term "extraordinary ability" means a level of expertise indicating that the 
individual is one of that small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field of endeavor. 8 C.F.R. 
5 204.5(h)(2). The specific requirements for supporting documents to establish that an alien has sustained 
national or international acclaim and recognition in his or her field of expertise are set forth in the regulation 
at 8 C.F.R. 5 204.5(h)(3). The relevant criteria will be addressed below. It should be reiterated, however, that 
the petitioner must show that he has earned sustained national or international acclaim at the very top level. 
This petition, filed on September 13, 2004, seeks to classify the petitioner as an alien with extraordinary 
ability as a materials science and engineering researcher. The petitioner earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science 
and Engineering from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in 2003. At the time of filing, the petitioner 
was working at the University of California, Davis (UCD) as a postgraduate researcher. 
The regulation at 8 C.F.R. 5 204.5(h)(3) indicates that an alien can establish sustained national or 
international acclaim through evidence of a one-time achievement (that is, a major, international recognized 
award). Barring the alien's receipt of such an award, the regulation outlines ten criteria, at least three of which 
must be satisfied for an alien to establish the sustained acclaim necessary to qualify as an alien of 
extraordinary ability. The petitioner has submitted evidence pertaining to the following criteria. 
Page 3 
Documentation of the alien's membership in associations in the field for which classiJication is 
sought, which require outstanding achievements of their members, as judged by recognized 
national or international experts in their disciplines or fields. 
In order to demonstrate that membership in an association meets this criterion, the petitioner must show that 
the association requires outstanding achievement as an essential condition for admission to membership. 
Membership requirements based on employment or activity in a given field, minimum education or 
experience, standardized test scores, grade point average, recommendations by colleagues or current 
members, or payment of dues, do not satisfy this criterion as such requirements do not constitute outstanding 
achievements. In addition, it is clear from the regulatory language that members must be selected at the 
national or international level, rather than the local or regional level. Therefore, membership in an association 
that evaluates its membership applications at the local or regional chapter level would not qualify. Finally, 
the overall prestige of a given association is not determinative; the issue here is membership requirements 
rather than the association's overall reputation. 
The petitioner submitted evidence of his membership in the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society. The 
record, however, includes no evidence of the membership bylaws or the official admission requirements of 
this society to demonstrate that admission to membership requires outstanding achievement or that the 
petitioner was evaluated by national or international experts in consideration of his admission to membership 
Evidence of the alien's participation, either individually or on a panel, as a judge of the work of 
others in the same or an alliedfield of speciJcation for which classiJcation is sought. 
The petitioner initially submitted correspondence reflecting that he was invited to review eleven manuscripts for 
Materials Science and Enaineerina: A from December 2000 to Se~tember 2004. It is noted that ten of these 
- - 
requests originated from the petitioner's academic advisor, Dr. 
 , Dean, College of Engineering, 
UCD, and Principal Editor, Materials Science and Engineering: 
 at 8 C.F.R. 8 204.5(h)(3), 
however, provides that a petition for an alien of extraordinary ability must be accompanied by evidence that 
the alien has sustained national or international acclaim and that his or her achievements have been 
recognized in the field of expertise. Evidence of the petitioner's participation as a judge must be evaluated in 
terms of these requirements. In this instance, we cannot ignore that the petitioner's academic advisor was the 
editor of the requesting journal. Further, the correspondence submitted by the petitioner indicates that he is not 
actually a member of the editorial board of Materials Science and Engineering: A, but rather was assigned the task 
of manuscript reviews by others holding editorial responsibility. With respect to this journal, the role played by the 
petitioner appears clearly junior or subsidiary to that of actual editorial staff. While not dispositive, the lesser role, 
even in behalf of more than one editor, does not support a claim to being one of that small percentage who have 
risen to the very top of the field of endeavor. See 8 C.F.R. 8 204.5(h)(2). 
We further note that peer review of manuscripts is a routine element of the process by which articles are 
selected for publication in scholarly journals. Occasional participation in peer review of this kind does not 
Dr states: "I was [the petitioner's] academic advisor when he was a Ph.D. student at the University of 
California, Irvine from 1998 to 2003. 
 Now [the petitioner] is working in my research group as a postgraduate 
researcher." 
Page 4 
automatically demonstrate that the petitioner has earned sustained national or international acclaim at the very 
top of his field. Reviewing manuscripts is recognized as a professional obligation of scientists who publish 
themselves in scientific journals. Normally a journal's editorial staff will enlist the assistance of numerous 
professionals in the field who agree to review submitted papers. It is common for a publication to ask several 
reviewers to review a manuscript and to offer comments. The publication's editorial staff may accept or 
reject any reviewer's comments in determining whether to publish or reject submitted papers. 
On appeal, the petitioner submits correspondence reflecting that ~r~uested his review of eight 
additional manuscripts for Materials Science and Engineering: A from September 2004 through July 2005. 
The petitioner also submitted a May 19, 2005 e-mail requesting that he review an article for Modelling and 
Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering. The review requests submitted on appeal, however, came 
into existence subsequent to the petition's filing date. A petitioner must establish eligibility at the time of 
filing. 
 8 C.F.R. 8 103.2(b)(12); see Matter of Katigbak, 14 I&N Dec. 45 (Comm. 1971). 
 Subsequent 
developments in the petitioner's career cannot retroactively establish that he was already eligible for the 
classification sought as of the filing date. 
Without evidence in existence at the time of filing that sets the petitioner apart from others in his field, such as 
evidence that he has peer-reviewed an unusually large number of manuscripts for publication in various 
scientific journals, received multiple independent requests for his services from a substantial number of 
journals, or served in an editorial position for a distinguished journal (in the same manner as Dr. Lavernia, for 
example), we cannot conclude the petitioner meets this criterion. 
Evidence of the alien's original scientiJic, scholarly, artistic, athletic, or business-related 
contributions of major signijicance in the field. 
The petitioner submitted several letters in support of the petition. 
I knew of [the petitioner's] work in the field of spray forming before he joined my research group. At 
that time, [the petitioner] worked as a research metallurgist with the National Research Center for 
Nonferrous Metals Composites at the Beijing General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals in 
China. [The petitioner] had successfully developed a free-fall gas atomization technique. He invented 
a brand new type of free-fall gas atomization atomizer, which has been granted a patent in China 
entitled "Two-layer free-fall gas atomization atomizer." This type of free-fall gas atomization 
atomizer is now widely used throughout the world. This invention not only facilitates the atomizer 
scanning to control spray-formed geometry, but also broadens the application of spray-forming 
technique to refractory materials. 
Dr. 
 Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, states: 
In 1997, [the petitioner] invented a new type of free-fall gas atomization atomizer. By using this type of 
atomizer, "upward spray" phenomenon can be thoroughly avoided during free-fall atomization. 
Nowadays, this type of free-fall gas atomization atomizer has been adopted worldwide. 
 This 
Page 5 
achievement is a new breakthrough in the field of spray forming and of gas atomization. As a result, [the 
petitioner] earned a Chinese patent "Two-layer fi-ee-fall gas atomization atomizer." 
In support of Dr. 
 tatements, the petitioner submitted evidence showing that he holds a 
Chinese patent for his atomizer. 
Dr 
 is the Chair Professor of Mech 
 gineering and the Director of the Metal Processing 
Institute (MPI) in Worcester, ~assachusetts.~ Dr 
 states: 
[The petitioner] is working on advanced materials processing techniques; though I do not know him, I 
am familiar with his work - published in the literature, and am most impressed with his 
accomplishments. 
I am most impressed by [the petitioner's] creative research work on a novel materials processing to 
fabricate metallic strip products, "spray rolling." [The petitioner] has discovered that spray rolling 
can be optimized into a metallic strip manufacturing technique with an ultra-high production rate, 
leading to a significant saving in the production cost of metallic strips. This discovery is absolutely a 
significance [sic] contribution and has a profound impact on manufacturing industry of metallic 
products worldwide. This discovery has been presented in the paper "The selection of the spray 
deposition rate during the spray rolling process" published in Metallurgical and Materials 
Transaction A, the most prestigious international journal in the field of materials. 
Furthermore, [the petitioner] has made another significant accomplishment, in which a unique 
approach has been discovered to fragment oxides in the metallic matrix into nanometric (1 to 10 
nanometers) oxide particles, leading to the synthesis of metal matrix composites reinforced by 
nanometric oxide particles. This original contribution of major significance has also been published in 
Metallurgical and Materials Transaction A (the paper "Modeling of oxide dispersions in reactively 
processed Al"). For the past decades, materials scientists have been devoting themselves to reducing 
the oxide particle size in order to increase the strength of metal matrix composites reinforced by oxide 
particles. However, the current minimum size of oxide particles only attains the range of 10 to 100 
nanometers and is extremely difficult to be further reduced. Accordingly, the oxide particle size has 
become a bottleneck to further increase the strength of this class of composites. It is a unique 
approach discovered by [the petitioner] that fragments oxides in the metallic matrix into nanometric 
oxide particles. Nanometric oxide particles will improve the strength of this class of composites to an 
ultra-high value, which is much higher than that of metal matrix composites reinforced by 10 to 100 
nanometers oxide particles. Thus, this original contribution is a significant breakthrough in the 
synthesis of metal matrix composites and creates a new class of metal matrix composites that 
possesses an ultra-high strength. This contribution will significantly benefit aeronautical and 
aerospace industry in the United States. 
2 
 Documentation submitted in response to the director's request for evidence describes the MPI as "an industry- 
university alliance dedicated to advancing the state of the art in the metal-processing industry." 
Dr 
 , Head of the Multiphase Research Group at the Institute for Materials Science, and 
Professor at the University of Bremen, Germany, states 
I have never met [the petitioner] in person, but I have been following [the petitioner's] publications in 
spray forming in renowned journals . . . . 
[The petitioner] is a pioneer researcher of a novel spray forming technique, "spray rolling." In the 
paper "The transient to steady-state transition during the spray-rolling process," spray-rolled 
geometry has been simulated for the first time worldwide. This original contribution is necessary to 
attain a consistently flat strip profile. In the paper "The selection of the spray deposition rate during 
the spray rolling process," the selection of spray deposition rate during spray rolling process has been 
theoretically studied for the first time worldwide. The results in this paper are indispensable for stable 
and continuous spray rolling operation and the optimization of microstructures and properties of the 
spray-rolled strip products. Of particular importance in this paper is [the petitioner's] discovery that 
spray rolling is capable of processing metallic strips at an ultra-high production rate, which is much 
higher than the production rate of the ingot metallurgy approach and of continuous casting approach 
widely used at present. One of the most important and encouraging prospects of this discovery that I 
can predict is to significantly reduce the production cost of metallic strip products, such as aluminum 
and steel strips that make up a high percentage in all of aluminum and steel products. The application 
of this discovery will bring a revolution to fabrication of metallic strip products worldwide. It is no 
doubt that this discovery is a contribution of major significance in materials engineering. 
~r Senior Scientist, Riso National Laboratory, Denmark, states: 
I have no personal ties with [the petitioner]. It is [the petitioner's] highly impressive publications on 
"spray rolling" that draws [sic] my attention to his exceptional research work in this new technique. 
It is particularly worthy of emphasizing [sic] that . . . [the petitioner] has discovered that "spray 
rolling" technique inherently possesses a capability to fabricate metallic strips at an extremely high 
production rate, leading to a remarkable saving in manufacturing cost. This original discovery will 
certainly provide the most cost effective approach for the production of metallic strips compared to 
the approaches suggested by all other researchers. Consequently, this discovery will have a significant 
impact on the technological progress in metallic strip products around the globe. 
Dr. hief, Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Chile, states: 
[The petitioner] has discovered that spray rolling can be used to process metallic strip products with 
an ultra-high production rate, resulting in a remarkable saving in the production cost of metallic 
strips. This discovery is definitely a contribution of major significance and has a tremendous impact 
on manufacturing industry of metallic products all over the world. At present, all other materials 
researchers on spray rolling only utilize rapid solidification during spray rolling to optimize 
microstructure and to avoid subsequent homogenization and multi-step hot rolling processes. 
Compared to all other materials researchers, [the petitioner] is the first to realize that rapid 
solidification can be used to thoroughly eliminate slow cooling, which results in a low production rate 
during conventional strip production techniques. It is this unique idea that leads to the aforementioned 
significant contribution. 
[The petitioner] has designed a unique approach to fragment the oxides in the metal matrix into 
nanometric (1 to 10 nanometers) oxide particles. As a result, metal matrix composites reinforced by 
nanometric oxide particles can be synthesized. It is predicted that the strength and ductility of metal 
matrix composites will be significantly increased with nanometric oxide particles. Thus, this 
achievement is a major contribution. In fact, materials researchers worldwide have been making 
efforts to attain the oxide particle size below 10 nanometers. They have been using equiaxed oxide 
particles of more than 1 micrometer as the starting point of fragmentation. When equiaxed particles 
are fragmented to the size of 10 to 100 nanometers, it is very difficult to make a further fragmentation 
although severe plastic deformation is used. No substantial progress has been made until [the 
petitioner] created this unique method. In his method, [the petitioner] creatively selected plate shape 
as the initial geometry of the oxides and incorporate severe plastic deformation (e.g., ball milling and 
other severe plastic deformation techniques) into the oxide fragmentation, generating nanometric (1 to 
10 nanometers) oxide particles. Hence, [the petitioner's] accomplishment is a breakthrough in the 
synthesis of particle reinforced metal matrix composites. 
President, Metals Technology Inc., Northridge, California, states: 
In his effort to optimize the production rate of the spray rolling technique, [the petitioner] has 
discovered that spray rolling can be used to fabricate metallic strips at an extremely high production 
rate, leading to very low production cost. This discovery directly benefits the metallic materials (such 
as aluminum and steels) industry of the United States, especially in a globalized economy. 
In addition to his distinguished contributions in spray rolling, [the petitioner] has made a 
groundbreaking achievement in the fabrication of metal matrix composites (MMC's). [The petitioner] 
has created a unique method to break oxides in the metal matrix into nanometric (from 1 to 10 
nanometers) oxide dispersions enabling the synthesis of nanometric oxide reinforced MMC's. . . . 
This contribution is of major significance because nanometric oxide reinforced MMC's have strength 
much higher than that of 10 to 100 nanometer oxide reinforced MMC's currently possessing the 
highest strength levels in this class of composites. This major contribution is of tremendous 
significance to the fabrication of advanced metallic materials such as those used in the latest 
generation fighter planes. . . . At present, there are no readily available materials to meet the stringent 
requirements for these critical components. Compared to amorphous aluminum alloys the materials 
scientists are now developing for use in structural components, nanometric oxide reinforced 
Page 8 
aluminum MMC's can save a very large amount of expensive metal elements which are required in 
the synthesis of amorphous aluminum alloys. This will result in a significant reduction in production 
costs. 
We find that the record adequately demonstrates the petitioner's contributions are important not only to the 
research institutions where he has worked, but throughout the greater field. Leading scientists from around 
the world have acknowledged the value of the petitioner's work and its major significance in the materials 
science and engineering field. Therefore, we find that the petitioner's evidence satisfies this criterion. 
Evidence of the alien's authorship of scholarly articles in the$eld, in professional or major trade 
publications or other major media. 
We concur with the director's finding that the petitioner's evidence is adequate to satisfL this criterion. 
Evidence of the display of the alien's work in the$eld at artistic exhibitions or showcases. 
The petitioner initially claimed that two of his conference presentations satisfied this criterion. This particular 
criterion, however, applies to the visual arts rather than scientific or engineering research. In the fields of 
science and engineering, acclaim is generally not established by the mere act of presenting one's work at a 
conference. The record includes no documentation demonstrating that the presentation of one's work is 
unusual in the petitioner's field or that the invitation to present at conferences where the petitioner spoke was 
a privilege extended to only a few top scientists or engineers. Many professional fields regularly hold 
conferences and symposia to present new work, discuss new findings, and to network with other 
professionals. These conferences are promoted and sponsored by professional associations, businesses, 
educational institutions, and government agencies. Participation in such events, however, does not elevate the 
petitioner above almost all others in his field at the national or international level. The record includes no 
evidence showing that the petitioner's presentations commanded an unusual level of attention in comparison 
to the other conference participants or that the petitioner has served as a keynote speaker at a national science 
or engineering conference. 
In this case, we concur with the director's finding that the petitioner has failed to demonstrate that he meets at 
least three of the criteria at 8 C.F.R. 5 204.5(h)(3). 
Review of the record does not establish that the petitioner has distinguished himself to such an extent that he may 
be said to have achieved sustained national or international acclaim or to be within the small percentage at the 
very top of his field. The evidence is not persuasive that the petitioner's achievements set him significantly above 
almost all others in his field at the national or international level. Therefore, the petitioner has not established 
eligibility pursuant to section 203(b)(l)(A) of the Act and the petition may not be approved. 
The burden of proof in visa petition proceedings remains entirely with the petitioner. Section 291 of the Act, 
8 U.S.C. 5 1361. Here, the petitioner has not sustained that burden. Accordingly, the appeal will be dismissed. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.