Director Craig Harwood, Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships; Kaveh Danesh, recipient; and Fiona Doyle, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division
Craig Harwood, Director of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships; Kaveh Danesh, 2017 recipient; and Fiona Doyle, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies

Like many UC Berkeley students, Kaveh Danesh is a child of immigrants. His parents came from Iran and persevered through hardship while building a new life and working to ensure that their children would have a better future.

Kaveh, a doctoral student in the Department of Economics who also studies journalism, honors his parents’ struggles by focusing his work in applied economics and narrative writing on the obstacles faced by society’s most vulnerable and disenfranchised people.

This commitment helped Kaveh to be selected for the 2017 cohort of recipients of The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. The prestigious Fellowship was established by Hungarian immigrants and American philanthropists Paul and Daisy Soros, whose “lives as immigrants informed and shaped their decision to fund and personally support a national graduate fellowship program that helps launch careers of New Americans.”

Kaveh knows the value of fellowship support. “[Without it] I’d be less focused on research and less able to explore Berkeley’s unique strengths across disciplines.”  He has applied to medical school with the long-term goal of alleviating poverty through both economics and medicine.

Are you an immigrant or a child of immigrants? If so, you may eligible for The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which each year awards tuition support and stipends of $90,000 over two years to 30 Fellows. Applicants, who must be under the age of 30, may be pursuing a graduate degree in any discipline at an accredited U.S. institution.

Fellows become part of a community of scholars — nearly 600 students over the last 20 years – who have heritages from countries around the world. Fellows are encouraged to practice “active and informed citizenship” as they make distinctive contributions to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Visit the Paul and Daisy Soros website for more information. This year’s application deadline is November 1, 2017.