Applicant Information

Veterans: Applying for the PD Soros Fellowship

June 10, 2025

Graphic with yellow background, American flag on left side, and text across the image in dark grey "Immigrants making a difference"

A graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants in all fields

What do Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Colin Powell, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Carnegie, General Shalikashvili, Madeleine Albright, and Isabel Allende all have in common? They are all either immigrants or children of immigrants, and they all have made immeasurable impact on the United States. Whether it was through discovery, literature and culture, law, business, or government, these individuals represent the remarkable contributions that continuing generations of New Americans make to our country every day.

Founded by immigrants, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans (PD Soros) is a graduate school fellowship exclusively for young New Americans who are early in their careers and pursuing a graduate degree full-time in the United States.

Every year, the PD Soros program awards 30 fellowships to the most promising New Americans. Each selected Fellow receives up to $90,000 in financial support over one to two years of their graduate studies. More importantly, they join a lifelong community of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows who demonstrate the diverse contributions that immigrants and children of immigrants from all over the world make to the United States.

“We many thousands of past and present proud immigrants to this great country did not have the choice of choosing our place of birth or choice of parents. We did have the choice to be called immigrants by birth and Americans by choice. We were always Americans in our hearts.” — Alfred Rascon, a native of Mexico, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and former director of the Selective Service

Veterans

Learn about the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows who have served in the United States armed forces: Mill Etienne (1998 Fellow), Javier Galvan (2017 Fellow), Joseph Guimaraes (2017 Fellow), Akhil Iyer (2018 Fellow), Hamid Nasir (2018), Raj Shah (2004 Fellow), Thomas Sy (1999 Fellow), Khalil Tawil (2014 Fellow), Mark Minghao Xue (2015 Fellow), Matt K. Nguyen (2017 Fellow), Mahdi Al-Husseini (2025 Fellow), and Jupneet Singh (2025 Fellow).

Mill Etienne is a captain in the United States Navy and he is the chief medical officer for Navy Reserve Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Bethesda
Javier Galvan was a sergeant in the Marine Corps and pursued both a medical degree at UC San Francisco and a master’s in public health degree at Johns Hopkins University
Joseph Guimaraes joined the United States Navy Band, the premier wind ensemble of the Navy, in 2020
Akhil Iyer was fortunate to work with a remarkable group of Marines, Sailors and Soldiers while serving as a Marine Corps infantry officer and special operations team commander before pursuing an MBA/MPP at Harvard University
Hamid Nasir is a Captain in the Army and pursued a law degree at Georgetown University
Raj Shah was a pilot in the Air Force, received his MBA from Wharton, and was the managing director of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx)
Thomas Sy was in the Army and won awards as a distinguished honor graduate of the Primary Leadership Development Course, the Special Forces (Green Berets), and the Egyptian Arabic Language Course
Khalil Tawil was an officer in the Army, founded Umi Kitchen, and pursued law and business degrees at Yale University and Harvard University respectively
Mark Minghao Xue was an officer in the Marine Corps, received his MS in computer science from Stanford University, and is now a privacy engineer
Matt K. Nguyen serves as a U.S. Army Reserve Captain Judge Advocate specializing in national security and administrative law
Mahdi Al-Husseini is an active-duty captain in the US army, and is currently pursuing a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University
Jupneet Singh was the Commander of the Air Force ROTC Detachment and is currently pursuing an MD at Harvard University and plans to complete residency as an active-duty Air Force captain

Additional Resources on Fellowships and Scholarships for Veterans

If The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans isn’t the right fit for you, or if you are looking for other educational resources, take a look at the following sites:

Service to School: A non-profit that provides free application counseling to military veterans
Pat Tillman Foundation: They invest in military veterans and their spouses through academic scholarships
ProFellow: A helpful resource for anyone looking at fellowships and scholarships