3 UC Berkeley Graduate Students Named 2020 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans program honors the contributions of immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. Each year, this program invests in the graduate education of 30 new Americans — immigrants and children of immigrants — who are poised to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture or their academic field. Each Fellow receives up to $90,000 in financial support over two years, and they join a lifelong community of New American Fellows.
From a pool of 2,211 applicants, the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship committee selected 30 New Americans from across the country. Among the 30 individuals selected are three scholars from the UC Berkeley community. Please join us in congratulating Ji Su Yoo, Meena Jagadeesan, and Sal Wanying Fu on their selection as 2020 Paul & Daisy Fellows!
Ji Su Yoo was born in São Paulo, Brazil and raised in Santa Cruz, Bolivia before her family moved to Los Angeles, California. At UC Berkeley’s School of Information, Ji Su is pursuing a Ph.D., focusing on the intersection of technology and inequality, and social computing using mixed methods. Ji Su received her AB in social studies from Harvard University in 2015. Read Ji Su’s full bio here.
Meena Jagadeesan, born in Naperville, Illinois, is the daughter of Indian immigrants who immigrated separately to the United States and met years after arriving. Her father immigrated to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science, and her mother immigrated as a child when her mother’s parents started doctoral mathematics programs in New York. Meena is currently a senior at Harvard University, in her final year of a joint bachelor’s and master’s program studying computer science, mathematics, and statistics. In the fall, Meena will pursue a Ph.D. in computer science at UC Berkeley. Read Meena’s full bio here.
Sal Wanying Fu was born in China and immigrated with her parents when she was one. Having grown up in the Bay Area with a love of libraries, Sal was unsure if she would major in English or physics when she first entered Pomona College. Once at Pomona, having a sense of belonging to the physics department through mentors and fellow students led her to choose physics as her major. As a current astrophysics Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley, advised by Professor Dan Weisz, Sal works with multi-national research collaborations to investigate the physics of the very first stars, the formation of the very first galaxies, and the nature of the dark matter particle. Read Sal’s full bio here.
Congratulations on your selection as 2020 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows.
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The application for the 2021 Fellowship is now open! Full eligibility requirements can be found here. Applications are due no later than October 29, 2020.
