Case Summary:

“The value of [the client’s] research on the global agricultural sector helps to address a critical need. As of 2015, about one-third of soil worldwide was degraded, owing to its poor health to climate conditions and improper agricultural responses to these conditions…In her synthesis of large and various sets of climate data into legible resources and predictive tools, [the client] facilitates this process, demonstrating the invaluable nature of her agrometeorology work.”

“In her development of a system for accurately analyzing the impact of droughts and predicting droughts, [the client] has fundamentally advanced this capability, proving herself to be an irreplaceable asset to both the agrometeorology community and the United States as a whole.”

These are two passages taken from letters of recommendation written for a senior researcher in agrometeorology from Iran. The letters stand as testimonials to the client’s expertise and hence reliability as a researcher par excellence. So when she came to NAILG seeking help with her NIW (National Interest Waiver) petition, we made sure to make a list of her achievements thus far and found these relevant facts in her documents:

• As an expert in the field of agrometeorology, her proposed endeavor is to continue her research on climate change and drought events using artificial intelligence and data analysis in order to develop strategies that mitigate the harm of extreme weather events in the agricultural sector.
• Her research advancing her proposed endeavor is of great importance because it directly addressed the threat that climate change poses to the world’s food security.
• Her proposed endeavor also has broad implications for the United States, since as a global exporter of produce and food, the combined agricultural and food industries contributed over $1 trillion to the U.S. GDP in 2019, with American farms directly contributing more than $136 billion to this sum.
• She has also completed at least 40 reviews to date for very well-known journals in her field.
• Her research has resulted in 18 peer-reviewed journal articles (8 of them first-authored).
• And these publications have been cited a total of 199 times according to Google Scholar, thereby demonstrating that these publications are widely recognized and relied upon in the field of agrometeorology.
• She has pursued research directly related to her proposed endeavor of investigating climate change and drought events using artificial intelligence and data analysis to develop strategies to mitigate the harm of extreme weather events on the agricultural sector for 11 years.
• We also collected evidence of her major funding source namely, the National Research Foundation of Korea.
• Finally, she also had 4 letters supporting her work in the field.

All of these factors weighed in and made her petition a very tightly-knit one. We are proud of having had the opportunity to work with her and we wish her all the luck for the future.