dismissed EB-1A Case: Robotics

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 18109021 
Appeal of Nebraska Service Center Decision 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: OCT. 8, 2021 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Extraordinary Ability) 
The Petitioner, a research scientist in the field of robotics, seeks classification as an individual of 
extraordinary ability. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b)(l)(A), 8 U.S.C. 
§ 1153(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 satisfied at least three of the ten initial evidentiary criteria for this 
classification, 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 by a 
preponderance of the evidence. See Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361, Matter of Chawathe, 25 
l&N Dec. 369, 375 (AAO 2010). Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
Section 203(b)(l)(A) of the Act makes visas available to immigrants 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 pet1t10ner can demonstrate 
international recognition of his or her achievements in the field through a one-time achievement (that 
is, a major, internationally recognized award). If the petitioner does not submit this evidence, then he 
or she 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) 
( discussing a two-part review where the documentation is first counted and then, if fulfilling the 
required number of criteria, considered in the context of a final merits determination); see also 
Visinscaia v. Beers, 4 F. Supp. 3d 126, 131-32 (D.D.C. 2013); Rijal v. USCIS, 772 F. Supp. 2d 1339 
(W.D. Wash. 2011). 
II. ANALYSIS 
At the time of filing, the Petitioner was a doctoral student in computer science and engineering at the 
University o~ I where she was also employed as a research associate. 1 The Petitioner has 
a master of science in robotics from University, a master of engineering in computer 
science from.__ _____ ---r-----.----------=...---- ....... and a bachelor's degree in computer 
science and mathematics fro .___ _ _,The record reflects that she is the founder and CEO ofl I 
.__ _ _.la U.S. company which intends to develop and market an .__ ________ __.reliant on 
robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. 
Because the Petitioner has not claimed 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 Director determined that the Petitioner met two of these criteria by 
providing evidence that she has participated as a judge of the work of others in her field and by 
authoring scholarly articles in professional publications. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(iv) and (vi). The 
record supports this determination, as the Petitioner has documented her service as a judge based on 
her peer review of manuscripts for scientific journals and conferences in her field. She has also 
published her scholarly work in a journal (IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters) and in international 
conferences in her field. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that she submitted sufficient evidence to establish that she has made 
original scientific contributions of major significance in her field and therefore meets the criterion at 
8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v). 2 After reviewing all the evidence submitted, we conclude that the record 
does not support a finding that the Petitioner satisfies the requirements of at least three criteria. 
1 The record reflects that the Petitioner received her Ph.D. from the University ofl I in August 2020. 
2 Although the Petitioner previously claimed to meet three additional evidentiary criteria, she does not contest the 
Director's determination that she did not satisfy the criteria related to lesser nationally and internationally recognized 
awards at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(i), display of her work a1i artistic exhibitions and showcases at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(vii), 
and performance in a leading or critical role for an organization or establishment that has a distinguished reputation at 8 
2 
Evidence of the individual's original scientific, scholarly, artistic, athletic, or business­
related contributions of major sign[ficance in the field. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v). 
This criterion calls for evidence of a petitioner's original scientific, scholarly, artistic, athletic, or 
business-related contributions of major significance in the field. For example, a petitioner may show 
that their 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 in the field. 
The Petitioner asserts that she meets this criterion bas,..,.._"""""'.......,, ......... """'-'.........,"""""'"'-'-'-'U....,,.:.LL- ___ .......,.·ncorporated 
into an autonomous stem called , which was 
developed at the University of Robotics Lab. Specifically, the Petitioner 
explains that she contributed to tion and mani ulation com onents 
which allow the 
L--------------------...r----i,. _______ _J The Petitioner 
maintains that the significance of her contribution to th,__ _ _.project has been widely recognized in 
the field, as evidenced by her publication of two articles and two datasets related to the project, 
citations to and downloads of these publications and data, media attention received by the project, and 
letters from experts in her field. She asserts that this evidence, considered in its totality, is sufficient 
to establish the major significance of her scientific contribution. 
The Petitioner asserts that the Director failed to consider evidence of "massive downloads" of two 
datasets related to theO project that are available on th website. 
S ecificall , she states that her team at Universit of ublished two datasets: (1) "A 
which has been ~------------- ........ ------------------downloaded 13,644 times; and (2) ~---------------~which has been 
downloaded 37,730 times. The Petitioner explains that the datasets can be used by other researchers 
to understand ho~ lso that they can recreate those actions with 
robots. She states that the only "logical reason" for her datasets to have over 50,000 downloads is 
because her "peers in this field have widely recognized her original findings and the importance of her 
original findings, which can ... help them to do their own [research]." 
The Petitioner states that the two datasets have achieved a "massive" number of downloads but the 
record does not contain comparative information regarding downloads for other datasets in the same 
field. Rather, she asserts that 50,000 is a large number without placing that number in context. Without 
supporting evidence to provide such context, she has not supported her claim that the total number of 
downloads establishes the major significance of the data she collected through her research on the 
,___ _ _.I project. 
Further, the total number of downloads for a given dataset does not provide insight into how many 
individual researchers have downloaded the Petitioner's data. For exam le, the l I 
.__--.-----~--------,,-------,__ ___ __,.-,----' has been downloaded 
over 13,000 times since being published o ~------~ in 2019. However, this dataset includes 
C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(viii). We consider these issues to be waived and will not further discuss these criteria. See Matter 
of R-A-M-, 25 I&N Dec. 657, 658 n.2 (BIA 2012) (stating that when a filing party fails to appeal an issue addressed in an 
adverse decision, that issue is waived). 
3 
nearly 2500 files and the total number of downloads represents the sum of downloads for each file; it 
does not indicate that 13,000 researchers have downloaded the complete dataset. The Petitioner 
provided download numbers for ten individual files within the dataset showing that they were each 
downloaded between 7 and 15 times. Given the total number of files (2493) and total number of 
downloads (13,644), the average number of downloads per file would fall between 5 and 6 downloads. 
The Petitioner's other dataset, published o~ I in 2018, includes 479 files that have 
been downloaded a total of 37,730 times, or an average of approximately 79 downloads per file. 
In addition, a download count does not tell us whether or how the Petitioner's datasets have been used 
in subsequent research studies. If such downloads rarely result in citations, then the download count 
does not appear to correlate direct! to the impact or influence of the Petitioner's research in the field. 
Onl one of the two datasets (the 2018 dataset titled .__ ______ ___. 
.__ ________ ___. is included on the Petitioner's Google Scholar profile. Although the 
Petitioner emphasizes that it has over 37,000 downloads, the record reflects that this dataset had been 
cited only three times, a number which appears to include self-citations by the Petitioner. 
On appeal, the Petitioner focuses on the number of downloads and suggests that it would be unusual 
for a researcher to cite to a dataset such as those she published o~ l She maintains 
that "[p ]eople who downloaded them are scientific researchers in this specific field and they 
downloaded them not casually for fun, but seriously with the purpose for their research[]." At the 
same time, she states that the data contained in the datasets "is not in ordinary English words which is 
not practically cited as the normal citation." Her statements imply that researchers have downloaded 
and relied on her data for their own research without citing it. However, the information provided 
from! I indicates that the website automatically generates a full citation for every 
uploaded dataset for use by researchers, to ensure that those who publish the datasets are credited for 
their work when others rely on it. The record does not adequately support the Petitioner's claims that 
the downloads of her dataset should be given greater evidentiary weight than citations to those datasets. 
The Petitioner also em 
research related to th 
hasizes that she used the datasets discussed above to publish and present her 
ro · ect. She rovided evidence that her paper 
was published in 
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters in 2019 and that she resented!~ --------~I 
~---~-------~---------------~ at the 2019 International 
Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR). This evidence verifies that the Petitioner has shared her 
research associated with thel lsystem. Although funded and published work 
may be "original," this fact alone is not sufficient to establish that the work is of major significance. 
To satisfy this criterion, the Petitioner must demonstrate that the reaction from the field upon the 
dissemination of her work confirms that her research rises to the level of a "contribution of major 
significance" in the field. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v). 3 Here, the Petitioner provided her Google 
Scholar profile indicating that the two articles referenced above had been cited 21 times and 5 times, 
respectively. 
3 See 6 USCIS Policy Manual F.2 appendix, https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual) (stating that "[p]eer-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). 
4 
Generally, citations can serve as an indication that the field has taken interest in a petitioner's 
published or presented work. However, the Petitioner has not demonstrated that the number of 
citations received by her published work associated with th~ !project is commensurate with a 
contribution of major significance. In fact, referring to the citations received by her article in IEEE 
Robotics and Automation Letters, she states on appeal that the number of citations it received, if 
considered alone, "is not impressive." She asserts that these citations should be considered along with 
evidence that the corresponding dataset published on] I was downloaded over 13,000 
times, emphasizing that the combination of the citations and downloads is "very convincing" evidence 
of the significance of her research contribution. However, as discussed above, the Petitioner has not 
established that her datasets related to th~ project have been widely cited or that the downloads 
signify widespread notice or attention in her field commensurate with major significance. Although 
evidence related to the Petitioner's citations indicates that her research has received some attention 
from the field, she did not establish that the citations demonstrate that her work has been widely 
discussed or relied on by other researchers, that the work has been particularly influential or impactful, 
or that it is otherwise regarded as a contribution of major significance in her field. 
The Petitioner also provided evidence that several media outlets reported on the University of 
I Is first demonstration of the~-------~ robot when the IEEE Robotics and 
Automation article was published in 2019. The Petitioner provided copies of online articles from BBC, 
Reuters, Science Daily, GeekWire, Digital Trends, New Atlas, Fast Company, and Interesting 
En ineerin . An article about the ro·ect was also featured on the website of the NIH'sl I 
.__ ______________________ __, which provided project funding. The 
articles convey that ... ""'th""e::.er..:::e_,a::.er..:::e_,a=.tc===~ one million Americans with injuries or disabilities that 
revent them from and note that the team at Universit of has 
,__ _ ___,as a first step in developing an.__ __________ ~ robot. 
The articles describe the engineering challenges presented by~ project, describe how the 
research team approached those challenges, and explain how th~t works. While the articles 
comment on the potential of the technology, the evidence does not indicate that the algorithms 
developed by the Petitioner and incorporated into the I J or thel bbot itself: have 
already had a major impact in the robotics field or have resulted in a technology that is already being 
used by the population it intends to serve. 
For exam le the BBC article re orts that the ro · ect' s researchers 
The 
article published by Fast Company discusses several limitations of the robot and possible future 
improvements, noting that "the [University of I I team has no immediate plans for 
commercialization." The Geek Wire article refers tcC:J as "an earl -sta e ro · ect" and reports that 
Overall, the 
submitted media articles recognize the originality and potential of the research and two of them 
mention thatD is more advanced than an existing! I robot already on the market. 
However, they do not present! I as a development that has already been shown to have a 
demonstrable impact in the field commensurate with a contribution of major significance. 
5 
The Petitioner has also submitted several expert opinion letters that discuss her contributions to the 
I !project at University o~ f Although the authors comment on the originality of this 
research and the publication and presentation of this work, they do not sufficiently articulate how the 
Petitioner's research and findings havl already Impacted on influenced the field in a si nificant way. 
'----------~ who runs the Robotics Lab at Universit of and served 
as the Petitioner's Ph.D. advisor, acknowledges her contributions to the.__ _________ ~ 
s stem notin her critical role in the team's develo ment of "a software stack for a mobile 
'He '----------------------------------------' states that the project "has received much attention ... in the research community," but does not 
further elaborate on the influence or impact of the Petitioner's contributions. 
Other letters comment on the potential future applications of the Petitioner's work without detai
1
lingl 
how it has already impacted further research in the field or been widely implemented in the field. 
'------.----.-~a professor of computer science who previously served as the Petitioner's 
advisor at L----,--....1...::u.u.Ju..u.JCI.LU""""'"---'J.>.i.L---'-'...,_,,_.......,.u.........._......_.i.lJJ........,,___..,.....,. ........... ......,. __ ....u.....,_._.,1.1.L...--'-'.....,_....LLl...>..LJw.>.L..-,practi cal 
applications i and will 
help "millions of Americans in need o .__ _____ ....,_ ________ __,services." 
I ~' a mechanical engineering professor at mentions the two datasets and two p~u_b_l_i-ca-t-io_n_s__, 
associated with the Petitioner's research, and states that her work one=) and her expertise inl I 
robotic systems has "unlimited potential applications in improving the lives of many disabled 
Americans, which certainly has substantial merit and national importance." I I an 
electrical and computer engineering professor at I I University, similarly discusses the 
Petitioner's published work related to thel I project and notes its "importance to thel I 
robotics field iven its numerous a lications which can be designed to improve the quality of life for 
millions of individuals." Finally,! I a professor 
a .__ _____ __,University, states that the Petitioner has made "invaluable breakthroughs" that will 
"help millions of Americans who require! I services." 
While several of the letters emphasize the "substantial merit and national importance" of the field of 
I !robotics, they do not explain with specificity how the Petitioner's individual contributions to 
this field rise to the level of major significance. The submitted letters emphasize the potential of the 
Petitioner's research, the impact it may have in the future, and the merits of developing artificial 
intelligence and robotics technology for the purpose of assisting persons with disabilities with daily 
tasks. They do not contain specific, detailed information explaining the unusual influence or high 
impact her research has had on the overall field. Letters that specifically articulate how a petitioner's 
contributions are of major significance in the field and its impact on subsequent work add value. On 
the other hand, letters that lack specifics are not considered to be probative evidence that may form 
the basis for meeting this criterion. 5 
The reference letters and other evidence in the record show that the Petitioner's work has added to the 
general pool of knowledge and has resulted in incremental advancements in the field, as would be 
expected of any original research. However, the burden is on the Petitioner to not only identify her 
4 We have addressed the expert letters that discuss the Petitioner's work on the0 project at University ofl 0 
because this research forms the basis of her claim that she meets the criterion at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v). However, we 
have reviewed and considered all expert opinion letters provided in support of the petition. 
5 See 6 USC1S Policy Manual, supra, at F.2 appendix. 
6 
original contribution but to also demonstrate why it is considered to be of major significance in the 
field. Here, after reviewing the evidence submitted in support of this criterion, both individually and 
collectively, we conclude that she has not established that she has made original contributions of major 
significance in the field. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not submitted the required initial evidence of either a one-time achievement or 
documents demonstrating that she satisfies 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, upon a review of the record in its entirety, we conclude that it does not support a finding 
that she has established the acclaim and recognition required for this classification. 
The Petitioner seeks a highly restrictive visa classification, intended for individuals who are already 
at the top of their respective fields, rather than for individuals progressing toward the top. USCIS has 
long held that even athletes performing at the major league level do not automatically meet the 
"extraordinary ability" standard. Matter of Price, 20 I&N Dec. 953, 954 (Assoc. Comm'r 1994). 
Here, the Petitioner has not shown that the significance of her academic, scholarly, research, and 
professional accomplishments to date is indicative of the required sustained national or international 
acclaim or that it is consistent with a "career of acclaimed work in the field" as contemplated by 
Congress. H.R. Rep. No. 101-723, 59 (Sept. 19, 1990); see also section 203(b)(l)(A) of the Act. 
Moreover, the record does not otherwise demonstrate that the Petitioner has garnered national or 
international acclaim in the field, and that she is one of the small percentage who has risen to the very 
top of the field of endeavor. See section 203(b)(l)(A) of the Act; 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(2). 
The record does not establish that the Petitioner qualifies for classification as an individual of 
extraordinary ability. The appeal will therefore be dismissed for the above stated reasons, with each 
considered as an independent and alternate basis for the decision. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
7