this land is your land, this land is my land
TRANSCRIPT
s c i e n c e i n s i g h t s
This land is your land, this land is my land
As a child growing up in Ireland I always wanted to travel. In geography classes, I traversed the
world's great rivers and mountain ranges, visited copper mines and rain forests, and traveled the U.S. state by state from North Dakota to Texas when global agriculture was the lesson of the day. "Far Away Places" became my signature tune on the piano. I just didn't know which of those exotic places "with strange-sounding names" would lure me first.
Opportunity knocked soon after I finished college, when I was recruited to establish endocrinology and toxicology labs in a large medical facility in Arizona. Five years later, I moved to Washington, D.C., leaving the So-noran Desert I had grown to love for a new job and the opportunity to go to graduate school.
Other immigrants, too, pursue graduate school in the U.S. Now there's a scholarship program designed just for them—the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Founded in 1998 to support graduate education for outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants—the "new Americans"—the fellowships are endowed through a $50 million charitable trust established by the Soroses.
Grateful to the U.S. for the opportunities it gave them, the New York philanthropists, themselves Hungarian immigrants, wanted to "give something back." Rather than putting their names on a building, they wanted to be involved with people and with education, Daisy Soros has noted.
The fellowships pay half the tuition for graduate school and provide $20,000 in support for up to two years. Awardees must have distinguished undergraduate records. They must also have demonstrated both leadership potential and a sincere commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
This year, 30 fellows were selected from 1,215 applicants. Last year, 650 applied, and 20 made the cut. The awardees are the sons and daughters of chem
ists, physicists, mathematicians, musicians, farm workers, and laborers, among others. Some are refugees. They were born in the U.S., Italy, South Korea, England, Afghanistan, India, Mexico, and Laos, among many other countries. They are variously pursuing careers in medicine, engineering, science, business, law, music, journalism, and other disciplines, sometimes integrating two fields of study.
Among 1999 fellows are (from left) David Hernandez, born in 1978 in the Bronx, N.Y., to Hispanic immigrant parents; Nadine Burke, born in 1975 in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Jamaican parents who later immigrated to the U.S.; Renee Yuen-Jan Hsia,
born in 1977 in Hunts-ville, Ala., to Chinese immigrant parents; and Alexander Akhiezer, born in the Ukraine in 1971.
Akhiezer is a graduate student in the chemistry department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He tells C&EN that he comes from "a long line of physicists and mathematicians" and was under "enormous pressure" to follow in his family's footsteps until he came to the U.S. Studying physics in the Ukraine, "I was not answering my calling" for the life sciences, he says. Now pursuing biochemical research, he believes his "rigorous" training in physics and math gave him "a kind of mental discipline and depth of understanding" useful in experimental sciences and everyday life.
Hsai, a senior at Princeton University, is graduating in public and international affairs with certificates in East Asian Studies and Chinese language and culture. She will attend Harvard University this fall, pursuing both an
M.D. degree and a master's degree in public health.
Burke is entering her third year in medical school at the University of California, Davis. Passionate about "medicine and taking care of people and making sure that they get what they need," she hopes to help humanize "hard-core" medical disciplines where physicians may not be as empa-thetic as those in family practice.
Hernandez will graduate in August from Polytechnic University's Farming-dale, N.Y., campus with a B.S. in computer engineering and a master's degree in electrical engineering. He will continue at Polytechnic in graduate school in electrical engineering. "The fellowship has given me the opportunity to obtain my Ph.D. without financial obstacles," he says. "Additionally, having such faith put in me by such a respected group of individuals has increased my
determination to achieve my goals."
Another Soros fellow, Rajiv Narendra Doshi, completed a master's degree in biome-chanical engineering at Stanford between his second and
third years in medical school there. He already has invented a new prosthesis for upper-arm amputees.
Paul Soros defected from Hungary in 1948, entering the U.S. on a
student visa. A mechanical engineeer, he planned to get a master's degree in that field. But he had only $1,500 to cover tuition and living expenses while attending graduate school. He solved his financial dilemma by attending Polytechnic University rather than the more costly Ivy League schools where he had been accepted.
Mentoring is increasingly touted as the route to a successful career, and a legacy of mentors will surely be an added bonus of the Soroses' investment. As Hernandez says, "I am putting myself in the position of being a role model and mentor to others. I accept this responsibility and have every intention of helping both new Americans and others to have the opportunities that I have been fortunate enough to have been given."
The deadline for applying for the next round of fellowships is Nov. 30. Information is available from a web page (http://www.pdsoros.org) under a logo that says 'Welcome."
Mairin Brennan
MAY 31,1999 C&EN 3 5
Photos bv ChristoDher Smith