sustained EB-2 NIW Case: Computer Science

(b)(6)
U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF T-U-0-A-
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE : DEC.29 , 2016 
APPEAL OF 
NEBRASKA SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
PETITION: FORM I-140, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR ALIEN WORKER 
The Petitioner, a university, seeks second preference immigrant classification for the Beneficiary as 
a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, as well as a national interest waiver of the 
job offer requirement attached to this EB-2 classification . See Immigration and Nationality Act (the 
Act) section 203(b)(2) , 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2). After the petitioner has established a beneficiar y' s 
eligibility for EB-2 classification, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may, as 
matter of discretion , grant a national interest waiver if the petitioner demonstrates: (1) that the 
foreign national ' s proposed endeavor has both substantial merit and national importance; (2) that the 
foreign national is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor; and (3) that, on balance , it 
would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor 
certification. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884 (AAO 2016). 
The Director of USCIS' Nebraska Service Center denied the petition . The Director found that the 
Beneficiary qualified for classification as a member of the professions holding ap advanced degree , 
but that the Petitioner had not established that a waiver of a job offer would be in the national 
interest. 
The matter is now before us on appeal. In its appeal, the Petitioner argues that the Beneficiary is 
eligible for a national interest waiver based on his work on the project and his 
history of achievement in tqe field. The Petitioner contends that the Director did not assign proper 
weight to the letters of support and other evidence in the record. 
Upon de novo review , we will sustain the appeal. 
I. LAW 
To establish eligibility for a national interest waiver, a petitioner "must first demonstrate the 
beneficiary's qualification for the underlying EB-2 visa classification , as either an advanced degree 
professional or an individual of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Because this 
classification requires that the individual 's services be sought by a U.S. employer , a separate 
showing is required to establish that a waiver of the job offer requirement is in the national interest. 
Section 203(b) of the Act sets out this sequential framework: 
Matter ofT-U-0-A-
(2) Aliens who are members of the professions holding advanced degrees or aliens of 
exceptional ability. -
(A) In general. - Visas shall be made available ... to qualified immigrants who 
are members of the professions holding advanced degrees or their equivalent or 
who because of their exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business, will 
substantially benefit prospectively the national economy, cultural or educational 
interests, or welfare of the United States, and whose services in the sciences, arts, 
professions, or business are sought by an employer in the United States. 
(B) Waiver of job offer-
(i) National interest waiver. ... the Attorney General may, when the Attorney 
General deems it to be in the national interest, waive the requirements of 
subparagraph (A) that an alien's services in the sciences, arts, professions, or 
business be sought by an employer in ,the United States. 
While neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the term "national interest," we recently 
set forth a new framework for adjudicating national interest waiver petitions. See Dhanasar, 26 I&N 
Dec. 884.1 Dhanasar clarifies that, after EB-2 eligibility as an advanced degree professional or 
individual of exceptional ability has been established, USCIS may grant a national interest waiver if 
the petitioner demonstrates by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) that the foreign national's 
proposed endeavor has both substantial merit and national importance; (2) that the foreign national is 
well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor; and (3) that, on balance, it would be beneficial to 
the United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor certification. If these 
three elements are satisfied, USCIS may approve the national interest waiver as a matter of 
discretion. 
The first prong, substantial merit and national importance, focuses on the specific endeavor that the 
foreign national proposes to undertake. The endeavor's merit may be demonstrated in a range of 
areas such as business, entrepreneurialism, science, technology, culture, health, or education. In 
determining whether the proposed endeavor has national importance, we consider its potential 
prospective impact. 
The second prong shifts the focus from the proposed endeavor to the foreign national. To determine 
whether he or she is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor, we consider factors 
including, but not limited to: the individual's education, skills, knowledge and record of success in 
related or similar efforts; a model or plan for future activities; any progress towards achieving the 
1 
In announcing this new framework, we vacated our prior precedent decision, Matter of New York State Department of 
Transportation, 22 I&N Dec. 215 (Act. Assoc. Comm'r 1998) (NYSD07). 
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proposed endeavor; and the interest of potential customers, users, investors, or other relevant entities 
or individuals. 
The third prong requires the petitioner to demonstrate that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the 
United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor certification . In 
performing this analysis , USCIS may evaluate factors such as: whether , in light of the nature of the 
foreign national 's qualifications or the proposed endeavor , it would be impractical either for the 
foreign national to secure a job offer or for the petitioner to obtain a labor certification; whether, 
even assuming that other qualified U.S. workers are available, the United States would still benefit 
from the foreign national's contributions; and whether the national interest in the foreign national's 
contributions is sufficiently urgent to warrant forgoing the labor certification process. In each case, 
the factor(s) considered must, taken together, indicate that on balance , it would be beneficial to the 
United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor certification. 2 
II. ANALYSIS 
The Director found that the Beneficiary qualified as a member of the professions holding an advanced 
degree. The sole issue in contention is whether the Petitioner has established that a waiver of the job 
offer requirement, and thus a labor certification, is in the national interest. 
The Petitioner proposes to continue to employ the Beneficiary as lead software engineer for the 
"a funded project that aims to 
create an innovative, comprehensive, and foundational cyberinfrastructure in support of plant biology 
research." seeks to enable scientists throughout diverse fields in plant biology to address 
challenging issues in new ways, to stimulate and facilitate cross-disciplinary research, to promote 
biology and computer science research interactions, and to train the next generation of scientists on the 
use of cyberinfrastructure in research and education. . The Petitioner indicates that the Beneficiary 
"leads the Core Software team for all of and that "under his leadership this team is responsible 
for the design, development, and innovations associated with the primary software platform that allows 
researcher[s] to manage and analyze massive data sets." 
A. Substantial Merit and National Importance of the Proposed Endeavor 
The record reflects that the Beneficiary's work involves designing a web user interface and integrating 
it with high performance computing platforms to allow scientific researchers to manage massive data, 
sets. The project seeks to deliver useful tools for the benefit of plant science research. The 
Petitioner submitted 
information from website, stating: "By enabling biologists to do data­
driven science by providing them with powerful computational infrastructure for handling huge datasets 
and complex analyses, fills a niche created by the computing epoch and a rapidly evolving 
world." We find that the Beneficiary's work has substantial merit because it supports the needs of the 
scientific community and facilitates progress in plant biology research. 
2 See Dhanasar, 26 l&N Dec. at 888-9 I, for further eJaboration on these three prongs. 
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The record also demonstrates that the Beneficiary's proposed work to continue developing a 
cyberinfrastructure for life sciences research and to provide users with access to supercomputing 
capabilities is of national importance. The Petitioner submitted probative letters from experts in the 
field that describe the national importance of the Beneficiary's work as lead software engineer for 
co-director of the project and director of advanced computing at the 
explained that 
"is a 
1 0-year $100 million dollar investment by the that is part of a 
comprehensive national initiative to address the urgent .need for facile access to enormously powerful 
data storage, computing, and collaborative work environments." In addition, the Petitioner provided 
published articles discussing the widespread benefits associated with the project. For 
instance, an 2014 article in Journal of Experimental Botany noted that makes 
complex bioinformatics resources more accessible researchers . in the plant science community, 
furthers discoveries in plant science research, and provides a platform for education and outreach 
programs. The article further stated: "Based in the U.S., [cyberinfrastructure] is a platform 
open to anyone around the world; its 18,500 users can freely access a comprehensive suite of 
intuitive, user-friendly tools and resources created with data storage, sharing, and analysis challenges 
relevant to the life sciences." The expert letters and published articles show the impot1ance of the 
Beneficiary's work to plant biology research both nationally and internationally. 
B. Well Positioned to Advance the Proposed Endeavor 
The Petitioner submitted numerous support letters describing the Beneficiary's expertise and record of 
success in his past work as lead software engineer for For example, indicated that 
the Beneficiary designed and implemented the "a powerful and 
intuitive web interface" used for interacting with and accessing the "computing, storage, and analysis 
application resources provided by cyberinfrastructure." further noted: 
[The Beneficiary's facilitates data-driven exploration and scientific discovery by 
providing, at unprecedented scalability and flexibility: 
1. Analytical tools that can be used individually or in work flows, allowing for truly 
reproducible scientific research 
2. Seamless access to the a national-scale cloud storage system for 
sctence 
3. Ability to run sophisticated, resource intensive computations on national [high 
performance computing] resources 
4. User-friendly interfaces for sharing data, workflows, analysis results, and data 
visualizations with collaborators or the public at large 
Furthermore, stated that the advanced functionality developed by the Beneficiary "has 
allowed thousands of biologists to prosper, computationally, and has led to the publication of seminal 
3 While we discuss only a sampling of these letters , we have reviewed and considered each one. 
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papers in fields as diverse as genome science and evolutionary theory." Lastly, explained 
that additional 
features are planned for the which "are utterly essential to continue the pace of 
successful enablement that has set in its first years of operation" and that the Beneficiary's 
"continued leadership of this project is critical, as his experience and insight to date are largely 
responsible for [its] success." 
co-principal investigator of noted: "[The Beneficiary] is the architect and leads 
the development of the . .. [T]he persuasive nature and use of this platfmm is 
evident through multiple publications that cited the use of for accomplishing tasks that were not 
possible before." In support of statement, the Petitioner provided documentation of222 
research publications that mention or acknowledge resources as contributing to the work or 
results being published. also indicated that the "popularity of the has resulted in 
multiple organizations wanting to adopt it for managing their large-scale scientific analysis." 
a scientific analyst for indicated that the Beneficiary "leads the core 
software development" for the project and "has contributed greatly to the development and 
improvement of the Similarly, professor of management 
information systems, entrepreneurship, and innovation at the stated that "is 
being used by hundreds of scientists, researchers, professors, [and] graduate students across the globe 
every day" and that it is especially helpful because it "has no pre-requisite computer programming skills 
for its use." 
acting director of the discussed how the Beneficiary and his team 
"have taken an innovative approach in constructing the .. making many of the 
tools and resources that were only available to a select few scientist[ s] widely available to the research 
community. To date has approximately 15,000 registered users .. .. " In addition, 
pointed out that the Beneficiary's work "is at the leading edge of the 'Big Data' movement in the 
scientific community, and of key interest to numerous federal agencies." further stated 
that "was initially funded for $50 million for five years (2008-2013) and recently has been 
renewed for additional five years (2013-2018) with a broader scope of addressing computational need 
beyond plant sciences." He added that the Beneficiary's "continued presence is required to grow 
capability to serve the growing needs of researchers and scientists." 
With regard to the Beneficiary's role as development leader of the a 
professor in the School of at thtr indicated that he "has put 
together an exceptional road map for with several useful features like hatching 
user analyses, project management capabilities, custom metadata, keyword tagging, and. advanced 
search functions." Furthermore, stated: "With more than fifteen thousand registered users 
relying on cyber-infrastructure, [the Beneficiary's] continuance at Collaborative is vital 
to its success and meeting the growing needs of biologists across the nation." Finally, 
mentioned that the "software products of [the Beneficiary's] team are now being used as the foundation 
of new companies in the U.S. and the model by which other countries address their life science 
computational needs." 
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senior software developer for the described 
how the Beneficiary's "contribution to design and architecture of the is vital in 
allowing to take advantage of the advances m metadata management, large scale data 
management, and the linking of computation to data." indicated: "The integration of the 
software into the data grid is a critical contribution to our 
cyberinfrastructure efforts, and has been identified by our multi-institutional collaborators as a valuable 
asset in managing and accessing research data." 
As detailed above, the significance of the Beneficiary's past projects in the field is corroborated by 
documentation of praise for his work and published articles reflecting widespread utilization of the 
in the scientific community. The Beneficiary's experience and expertise in his field, his 
record of success in developing and implementing his contribution to the expansion of 
beyond plant sciences, and his significant role as lead software engineer for the project, which 
has received ongoing funding from position him well to advance his proposed endeavor. 
C. Balancing Factors to Determine Waiver's Benefit to the United States 
As leader of the team responsible for development of cyberinfrastructure, the Beneficiary 
possesses considerable experience and expertise in the software engineering field. The record also 
demonstrates the national importance of developing a cyberinfrastructure for plant science research 
and providing users with access to supercomputing capabilities. The Petitioner.has documented the 
Beneficiary's past successes delivering useful software tools for the benefit of the research community. 
In addition, the continued funding from the and expansion of the Beneficiary's project beyond 
plant sciences demonstrate that the greater scientific community has found his work on to be 
promising and useful. For these reasons, we find the Petitioner has established that the United States 
will benefit from the Beneficiary's contributions even assuming that other qualified U.S. workers 
were available to perform these software engineering functions. Therefore, we conclude that, on 
balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive 
the requirements of a job offer and thus 
of a labor certification. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has demonstrated that the Beneficiary meets the requisite three prongs set forth in the 
Dhanasar analytical framework. We find that the Beneficiary is eligible for and otherwise merits a 
national interest waiver as a matter of discretion. Accordingly, the Petitioner has met its burden to 
establish the Beneficiary's eligibility for the immigration benefit sought. Section 291 of the Act, 
8 U.S.C. § 1361. 
ORDER: The appeal is sustained. 
Cite as Matter ofT-U-0-A-, ID# 77945 (AAO Dec. 29, 2016) 
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