Case Summary:

A postdoctoral fellow from Turkey filed an I-140 National Interest Waiver (NIW) petition, and we were engaged to represent her. A part of our job was demonstrating that our client is a member of the advanced degree-holding professions due to her attainments, which include a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. In order to support critical civil and mechanical engineering applications, our client’s work involved studying and developing numerical tools to solve complex fracture problems in structures. Her work is relevant to enhancing public safety and environmental sustainability while driving progress in energy storage technologies in the United States. So, in order to help her win the NIW case approval, we began by gathering all the relevant information into a captivating petition package.

We consolidated her petition package with the following items:

• We highlighted that most of the nation’s major infrastructure systems were designed in the 1960s, and many structures, including bridges and buildings constructed decades ago, are reaching the end of their lifespan and are thus susceptible to brittle failure. By meticulously studying the failure behavior of quasi-brittle materials, our client’s work enhances our understanding of structural vulnerabilities, providing a foundation for targeted interventions to improve the durability and safety of these structures.
• We also emphasized her outstanding record and important contributions to the field. 5 peer-reviewed journal articles (4 of them first-authored), 1 first-authored peer-reviewed conference paper, 1 accepted journal article, 2 first-authored conference abstracts, and 1 accepted book chapter that resulted from her study have been published in some of the top journals in her field. Her published work received 80 citations from several national and international researchers in the field, demonstrating her significant influence on other scholars’ comprehension of the topics she has researched.
• She has also been asked to perform peer reviews for a reputable publication in fracture mechanics, solid mechanics, and computational modeling because of her knowledge and proficiency in the subject; to date, she has conducted 30 reviews. This illustrates that people view her as a field authority and subject matter expert in areas relevant to her intended endeavor.
• Furthermore, her works have been funded by two different externally funded projects. Therefore, these funding supports prove that our client’s proposed endeavor, studying and developing numerical tools to solve complex fracture problems in structures in order to support critical civil and mechanical engineering applications, holds exceptional merit for the United States. Her pioneering work not only addresses critical issues in structural engineering but also extends into the realm of environmental design, contributing to a more sustainable and comfortable built environment for the future.

We are pleased to share that our client’s work is extremely important for worldwide public safety and environmental sustainability. Her NIW petition was approved by USCIS within 6 days of our submission, citing her leadership, experience, and subject-matter expertise as reasons for her exceptional eligibility for the position. We really appreciate our client’s cooperation during this process and extend our best wishes for her future endeavors.