- Fellow Highlights
The 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows by the Numbers: Infographics
The 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows are a remarkable group of immigrants and children of immigrants. Learn more about their backgrounds:


The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships does not have any quotas. Each year we see different regions being represented more or less. For example, this year we have 9 Fellows who have heritage in South Asia, but two years ago we had just one.
Each Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow’s story is different and unique to them. At a time when we need to hear more immigrant stories, we wanted to highlight a few quotes from the application essays of 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows.


The 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows graduated from a total of 20 undergraduate institutions: Colby College Cornell University Duke University Harvard University Johns Hopkins University Lynn University MIT Mount Holyoke Colloge New England Conservatory of Music Princeton University Regis College San Francisco State University Stanford University SUNY College at Purchase Trinity College UC Berkeley University of Oklahoma University of Vermont University of Pennsylvania Yale University
The 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows are attending ten universities total for graduate school: 1. Columbia 2. Harvard 3. Juilliard 4. Princeton 5. Stanford 6. The University of Iowa 7. UC Berkeley 8. UCSF 9. Upenn 10. Yale


The 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows are all pursuing graduate school in the 2017-2018 academic year.
12 of the 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows identify as female, and 18 identify as male.


This graphic shows the age distribution of the 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows as of the November 1, 2017 application deadline.
This graphic shows the age that Fellows immigrated to the United States. 18 of the Fellows are the children of immigrants and were born in the United States.


This year, six of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows are first-generation college graduates.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a merit-based fellowship, rather than a need-based fellowship. Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows come a range of socio-economic backgrounds. This graphic represents the household income of the 2017 Fellows when they were growing up.


The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is open to green card holders, DACA recipients, naturalized citizens, and US citizens by birth who are the children of immigrants.
Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows come from all over the country and world and often are fluent in more than one language. Of the 2017 Fellows, 14 are bilingual and 7 speak more than two languages fluently. 2017 Fellow Xuan Hong Thi Tran speaks Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, and French, and is conversational in Tibetan, Indonesian, and Arabic.


Each Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow’s story is different and unique to them. At a time when we need to hear more immigrant stories, we wanted to highlight a few quotes from the application essays of 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows.
We asked each of the 2017 Fellows “Who is a historical figure that represents the American spirit?” Here are just a few of the answers we heard. Other answers included: -Leonard Bernstein -Nikola Tesla -Hellen Keller -Eleanor Roosevelt -Duke Ellington -Martin Luther King, Jr. -Harriet Tubman -Lyndon B. Johnson -Andrew Carnegie -J. Robert Oppenheimer -John Forbes Nash, Jr. -Prince Rogers Nelson -Emma Goldman -Shirley Chisholm -Grace Lee Boggs

Read the biographies of the 2017 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows here.
Featured Fellows
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Caleb Gayle
Professor and Senior Fellow, Northeastern University
Caleb Gayle is the child of immigrants from Jamaica. Fellowship awarded in 2017 to support work towards an MBA in Business and an MPP at Harvard University
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Javier Galvan
Radiology Resident, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Javier Galvan is the child of immigrants from Mexico. Fellowship awarded in 2017 to support work towards an MD at University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
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Read more: Q&A with MD/PhD Student Silvia Huerta Lopez
Q&A with MD/PhD Student Silvia Huerta Lopez
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Read more: PD Soros Eligibility Guide for PhD Applicants
- Applicant Information
PD Soros Eligibility Guide for PhD Applicants
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Read more: Watch: Optional Exhibits & Recommendations
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Watch: Optional Exhibits & Recommendations
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Read more: Watch: Essay Writing information session
- 2025 Information Sessions
Watch: Essay Writing information session