sustained EB-2 NIW Case: Mathematics

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF S-M-
APPEAL OF TEXAS SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: OCT. 29,2015 
PETITION: FORM I-140, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR ALIEN WORKER 
The Petitioner, a mathematician, seeks classification as a member of the professions holding an 
advanced degree, and asserts that an exemption from the requirement of a job offer, and thus of a labor 
certification, is in the national interest of the United States. See Section 203(b )(2) of the Immigration 
and Nationality Act (the Act), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2). The Director, Texas Service Center, denied the 
petition. The matter is now before us on appeal. The appeal will be sustained. 
I. LAW 
Section 203(b) of the Act states, in pertinent part: 
(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) ... 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. 
The Petitioner qualifies 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. 
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Neither the statute nor the pertinent regulations define the term "national interest." Additionally, 
Congress did not provide a specific definition of "in the national interest." The Committee on the 
Judiciary merely noted in its report to the Senate that the committee had "focused on national 
interest by increasing the number and proportion of visas for immigrants who would benefit the 
United States economically and otherwise .... " S. Rep. No. 55, lOlst Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1989). 
In reNew York State Dept ofTransportation, 22 I&N Dec. 215, 217-18 (Act. Assoc. Comm 'r 1998) 
(NYSDOT), has set forth several factors which must be considered when evaluating a request for a 
national interest waiver. First, a petitioner must establish that the beneficiary seeks employment in 
an area of substantial intrinsic merit. !d. at 217. Next, a petitioner must establish that the proposed 
benefit will be national in scope. !d. Finally, the petitioner seeking the waiver must establish that 
the beneficiary will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an 
available U.S. worker having the same minimum qualifications. !d. at 217-18. 
While the national interest waiver hinges on prospective national benefit, the petltwner must 
establish that the beneficiary's past record justifies projections of future benefit to the national 
interest. !d. at 219. The petitioner 's assurance that the beneficiary will, in the future, serve the 
national interest cannot suffice to establish prospective national benefit. The term "prospective" is 
included here to require future contributions by the beneficiary, rather than to facilitate the entry of a 
beneficiary with no demonstrable prior achievements, and whose benefit to the national interest 
would thus be entirely speculative. !d. 
II. PERTINENT FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
The Petitioner filed the Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, on March 14, 2014, at 
which time he was working as a visiting assistant professor at The 
Petitioner stated that his current andprospective work involves both teaching and research, and that 
he has made significant and influential contributions to the fields of high dimensional statistics and 
machine learning. 
Documentation supporting the Form I-140 included copies of 11 papers the Petitioner had authored 
or co-authored, citation data regarding his work, evidence of his activities .as a peer reviewer for 
journals and conferences, and copies of invitations that he received to present his research at 
conferences and to participate in selective seminars and summer programs . In addition, the 
Petitioner submitted letters from supervisors , colleagues, and independent academic researchers in 
his field describing his work in detail and attesting to its significance. 
1 
The record reflects that the Petitioner received his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics in 2012 from 
where his research focused on machine learning. 
Machine learning deals with the design and analysis of algorithms that identify the most informative 
1 While we discus s only a sampling of these letters, we have reviewed and considered each one. 
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Matter of S-M-
observations from a large set of data. Within the field of machine learning, active learning 
algorithms adaptively select the data from which they "learn." The Petitioner 's thesis advisor at 
stated that the Petitioner "introduced the first 
mathematically sound and computationall y efficient active learning algorithms . .. thus opening the 
possibilities for practical use of active learning methods." assistant professor 
at . stated that the Petitioner's "method is computationally tractable (that is, it 
can be implemented on a computer), while previously existing optimal algorithms were purely 
theoretical." characterized the results of the Petitioner's research as "a major 
contribution to the field." In addition, of the 
stated that, while "most algorithms used in practice are problem specific and cannot be easily 
extended to other applications, " the Petitioner's approach "can be applied to a large collection of 
models." Several of the submitted letters noted the prestige of the 
. in which the Petitioner published his research results. 
of indicated that he is currently collaborating with the 
Petitioner to apply his active learning research to the area of personalized medicine. This project 
seeks to create new data analysis techniques to identify optimal treatment options based on an 
individual patient 's characteristics, allowing physicians to design individualized treatment rules for 
complex diseases. 
Another contribution discussed in the letters relates to the Petitioner's research at on high­
dimensional statistics, which deals with data sets that are too large to analyze with traditional 
methods. His supervisor, indicated that the Petitioner came up with a new 
approach that "allows the robust analysis of massive scale data in a manner that takes into account 
uncertainty - this is crucial for extracting inferences from big biomedical, financial, and military 
datasets ." stated that, in addition to controlling for irrelevant and erroneous 
measurements , the Petitioner 's "groundbreaking " method "speed[s] up the computations by splitting 
the data set into many groups, processing each of these groups separately, and combining the 
outcomes in a way that the final answer is as good as if the whole data set would be used 
simultaneously. " indicated that he was recently contacted by the 
and invited to submit a grant proposal motivated by this work. 
The Director issued requests for evidence (RFEs) issued on August 26, 2014, and December 10, 
2014, requesting additional documentation to demonstrate "a record of specific prior achievement 
with some degree of influence on the field as a whole." The Director stated that the Petitioner had 
not submitted supplemental evidence to give context to the citations of his work and show that they 
are demonstrative of his impact on the field. In response, the Petitioner submitted updated citation 
data for his work, copies of selected publications citing his research, articles describing publication 
patterns in the field of mathematics , and a table from showing citation 
averages by field. The figures included in the table for the field of mathematics indicated high 
citation rates by age of article for many of the Petitioner's papers. In addition, the Petitioner 
provided ranking information about universities worldwide, noting that his work has been cited by 
researchers at renowned institutions. 
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Matter ofS-M-
The Petitioner 's RFE response also included three additional letters from independent academics in 
his field, each of whom described the significance and influence of his work. For instance, 
of the attested to his own use of the Petitioner's 
approach to high-dimensional statistics, stating that it is one of the few "truly outstanding" 
methods he has worked with during his career. He stated that "[w]ith the help of [the] new 
methodology invented by [the Petitioner], modern problems that would previously take many hours 
of computational time (such as the analysis of internet advertising data, climate data, market 
segmentation data, real-time transportation data, etc.) can now be solved within minutes." 
professor at the described his personal 
knowledge of "several other groups that are actively applying the methods of [the Petitioner] in their 
projects, and use the software developed by [the Petitioner] and his collaborators that implements his 
novel methods." 
The Director denied the Form I-140 on February 10, 2015, finding that the Petitioner had not 
established sufficient impact and influence on his field to meet the third prong of the NYSDOT 
national interest analysis. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that his previously submitted evidence 
establishes his eligibility for the benefit sought. He provides copies of additional selected 
publications that cite his work along with his explanations of their significance. 
III. ANALYSIS 
As stated above, the analysis set forth in NYSDOT requires a petitioner to demonstrate that he or she 
will serve the national interest to a substantially greater degree than would an available U.S. worker 
having the same minimum qualifications. To do this, a petitioner must establish "a past history of 
demonstrable achievement with some degree of influence on the field as a whole." !d. at 219, n. 6. 
The submitted letters give context to the Petitioner 's past research and explain its importance in 
ways that the 
record otherwise supports. These letters and the submitted publications that discuss 
the Petitioner's work provide persuasive evidence that the Petitioner's novel methods in the areas of 
active learning and high-dimensional statistics have been considered significant and influential in his 
field. We find this evidence sufficient to demonstrate that his research has had a degree of influence 
on the field as a whole. We therefore find that the record justifies projection that the Petitioner will 
serve the national interest to a significantly greater degree than would an available U.S. worker 
having the same minimum qualifications. 
III. CONCLUSION 
As discussed above, the evidence in the record establishes that the benefit of retaining this 
Petitioner's services outweighs the national interest that is inherent in the labor certification process. 
Therefore, on the basis of the evidence submitted, the Petitioner has established that a waiver of the 
requirement of the job offer and labor certification will be in the national interest of the United 
States. 
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Matter ofS-M-
In visa petition proceedings, it is the petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the immigration 
benefit sought. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361; Matter o[Otiende, 26 I&N Dec. 127, 128 
(BIA 2013). Here, the Petitioner has met that burden. 
ORDER: The appeal is sustained. 
Cite as Matter ofS-M-, ID# 14153 (AAO Oct. 29, 2015) 
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