The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans

Call Website Contact the organization

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, Nonprofit Organization, New York, NY.

The purpose of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is to provide opportunities for continuing generations of able and accomplished new Americans to achieve leadership in their chosen fields. The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans provides 30 Fellowships each year to US graduate students who are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Each new class of Fellows joins a community of immigrant leaders and scholars who all are working to make an impact in their academic field and American society.

✨Happy National Latino Physician Day! ✨As I reflect on this day, I’m reminded that Latinas make up only ~2% of physician...
10/01/2026

✨Happy National Latino Physician Day! ✨

As I reflect on this day, I’m reminded that Latinas make up only ~2% of physicians in the US.

I’m proud to soon become the first doctora in my family. As I begin my second year of medical school at the University of Washington, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to my family, friends, and mentors, who have poured their love and support into me throughout this journey. I’m excited to continue growing and to start applying my clinical skills during rotations next year, training in both rural and urban areas across the five-state WWAMI region.

To all the Latine trainees, mentors, physicians, and community members: thank you! Thank you for representing our rich culture, advocating for our communities, and paving the way for future generations. Let this day serve as a reminder of your influence, power, and excellence as you continue to transform medicine for the better!

-Briana Martin-Villa, 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow

After graduating, I worked as a fellow at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. I co-organized nation...
10/01/2026

After graduating, I worked as a fellow at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

I co-organized national forums, including the White House Clinical Trials Forum, which brought together health leaders, researchers, and community advocates to discuss how clinical trials can become more accessible and representative of all communities.

As the youngest staff member and only Latina on my team I wanted to further engage the Latine community. I delivered the first-ever Spanish remarks on behalf of the Cancer Moonshot, a national effort led by President Biden to end cancer as we know it. I remember Latina cancer survivors approaching me and sharing their excitement at seeing me represent and speak Spanish, feeling that their stories would be amplified. Growing up in rural areas, I saw how structural barriers and distance from care facilities limited people in my community from receiving the care they needed.

My desire to be a physician is the culmination of my interest in being a connector between gaps that currently prohibit communities from receiving the care they deserve.

-Briana, 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow

Before going to college, I didn’t know what a bioengineer did. I didn’t see many people from backgrounds like mine shapi...
09/30/2026

Before going to college, I didn’t know what a bioengineer did. I didn’t see many people from backgrounds like mine shaping the future of science and medicine.

As a first-generation student and one of few Latinas in bioengineering, I found mentors and collaborators who expanded my vision for the future.

During my time at Stanford, I worked in the Heilshorn Lab, engineering organoids to study the effects of radiation and chemotherapy. I later started working with Dr. Stephanie Smith, a pediatric oncologist, applying my bioengineering design thinking to develop new programs to improve care for Latine young adult cancer survivors and their families.

I also co-led BioJam CoLABS (BioJam Camp), a program that brings together scientists, artists, educators, and youth to explore bioengineering through art, culture, and community-rooted science. Being part of BioJam has been especially meaningful to me because I saw my younger self in the youth we collaborated with. Many, like me, come from rural farmworker communities and are passionate about uplifting our community.

My experiences in my community, at Stanford, and alongside collaborators have shown me how medicine, research, and policy can work together toward a more equitable health system, with community voices at the center.

-Briana, 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow

Hi everyone! I’m Briana Martin-Villa, a 2026 PD Soros Fellow.I was born in Inglewood, California, where my parents first...
09/29/2026

Hi everyone! I’m Briana Martin-Villa, a 2026 PD Soros Fellow.

I was born in Inglewood, California, where my parents first met after arriving from Mexico. I grew up with my twin brother, moving with our mom from California to Oregon and eventually to Eastern Washington.

Being raised in farmworker communities and navigating frequent transitions shaped my path to higher education. As a child, I loved being outside and finding adventure wherever I could. Even though my family did not have much, I remember us always finding ways to make memories—cooking together, exploring, and making the most of what was around us. My mom made every effort to ensure my brother and I felt supported in pursuing our creativity and seeing education as a pathway to imagine new possibilities. 

I’m currently a second-year medical student at the University of Washington in Seattle. Excited to share more about my journey and the people who have inspired me along the way!
-Briana, 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow

Hello! My name is Melissa Hurtado Nuez and I’m a 2026 Soros Fellow currently pursuing a PhD in sociology at Rice Univers...
09/17/2026

Hello! My name is Melissa Hurtado Nuez and I’m a 2026 Soros Fellow currently pursuing a PhD in sociology at Rice University. I’m so excited to take over the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships Instagram during this
first week of Hispanic Heritage Month!

A little about me:
- I was born in Cuba and raised in Florida.
- I have a huge, really closed-knit family spread throughout Cuba, Brazil, and the U.S.
- My research focuses on migration, health, and guns in society (more on this later!)
- When I’m not working, I like to cook Cuban food and read fiction.
- I am a mom to a demanding 10-year-old pup.
I can’t wait to share more of my journey with you all this week! :)

-Melissa, 2026 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow

Thanks for following along this week! For my last post, I want to share a bit about the most important part of my journe...
09/14/2026

Thanks for following along this week! For my last post, I want to share a bit about the most important part of my journey: the people. Nothing I’ve shared this week is really mine alone. I have been extraordinarily lucky to have parents who built a life in this country and gave me every opportunity they could, family and friends who have believed in me through every version of what I wanted to become, and teachers and mentors who helped foster my growth and independence. I’ve had teammates, classmates, labmates, and colleagues who have challenged me, encouraged me, and made the journey a lot more fun along the way.

For me, the PD Soros fellowship is an extraordinarily special way to honor all of the people whose sacrifices, generosity, and faith in me made my own path possible. I feel incredibly grateful for the community that has carried me this far, and very lucky to be joining a new one through Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships.

Signing off,
Arya

Here are a few of the things that keep me busy outside of school!I serve as Assistant Artistic Director for the Longwood...
09/13/2026

Here are a few of the things that keep me busy outside of school!

I serve as Assistant Artistic Director for the Longwood Chorus alongside our Artistic Director, Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, and I also sing with the ensemble (photo credits to Julia Ziegler). The chorus brings together people from across Boston’s medical and scientific community, and rehearsals have become one of my favorite parts of the week. I’ve been singing for most of my life, so getting to keep performing while also growing as a conductor has been a particularly special part of living in Boston.

I also grew up swimming and played water polo during my undergrad Columbia University. I still love open water swimming, and some of my favorite swims have been Swim Across America events with my old Columbia teammates Columbia Women's Water Polo, raising money for cancer research. It is always a great excuse to reunite with the team and get back in the water together!

And since moving to Boston, I’ve added sailing to the list. I learned to sail on the Charles and try to get out whenever the weather cooperates. There are few better ways to spend a summer afternoon in Boston!
– Arya Rao, 2026 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow

For the PhD portion of my MD-PhD, I’m interested in how we can use artificial intelligence to make medicine more precise...
09/11/2026

For the PhD portion of my MD-PhD, I’m interested in how we can use artificial intelligence to make medicine more precise. We now generate extraordinary amounts of information about human health, from our genomes and cells to individual patients and entire populations, but our ability to interpret and use all of that information still lags far behind. My research is broadly motivated by a future in which we can bring those different kinds of data together to guide care that is more personalized, adaptive, and continuously improving.

That has given me an excuse to work on a pretty wide range of problems! Working with my two amazing PhD advisors, Pardis Sabeti (a 2001 PD Soros Fellow!) and Sangeeta Bhatia at the Broad Institute, I’ve built AI models that use the record of human evolution to identify the genetic variants that contribute to disease, and generative models that design new regulatory DNA sequences that can enable more precise gene therapies. On the clinical side, I’ve worked on ways to evaluate how AI reasons through patient care and built AI-powered clinical simulations that are now used in medical education. More recently, I’ve also been thinking about how clinical and genomic information can be connected across health systems to help us recognize emerging threats to human health earlier.

One of my favorite things about doing a PhD is getting to spend every day around people who are willing to take on questions that initially sound a little impossible. Science is extraordinarily collaborative, and nearly everything I’ve worked on has brought together people with completely different backgrounds, from machine learning and genomics to molecular biology and medicine. I’ve learned an enormous amount from those collaborations, and I feel very lucky to have colleagues who make the science both better and much more fun.

– Arya Rao, 2026 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow

Hi everyone! My name is Arya Rao, and I’m a 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow currently pursuing my MD and PhD at Harvard a...
09/08/2026

Hi everyone! My name is Arya Rao, and I’m a 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow currently pursuing my MD and PhD at Harvard and MIT. I’m excited to be taking over the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships Instagram this week!

I grew up in rural Michigan, surrounded by lakes, forests, and long winters (see pic #4!). My parents both immigrated from Mumbai, India, and built their lives there as physicians. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the emergency room while they cared for patients who came through in the middle of snowstorms, patients who, without my parents, would have had to drive hours away for medical care.

I could not be more proud to be their daughter, or more grateful to have grown up watching what a life of service looks like. It is probably no surprise that I eventually found my own way into medicine!

Last year, that story came full circle when my parents and I traveled together to Honduras on a medical mission providing pediatric orthopedic surgery. After spending so much of my childhood watching them practice medicine, getting to scrub in and operate alongside them was incredibly special!

Over the next few days, I’m excited to share a little more about where I come from, the science and medicine I’m working on now, and the people who have helped shape my path along the way.

– Arya Rao, 2026 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow

09/08/2026

Musicians, artists, designers, composers, directors, writers, filmmakers, dancers, actors, architects—are you pursuing a graduate degree in the United States?

Consider applying for The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans! Our Fellowship provides up to $90,000 in funding over one to two years of graduate study. The deadline is Oct. 29, 2026 at 2 pm ET.

The Fellowship is open to graduate students in all fields, including the arts, architecture, and literature.

Learn more: www.pdsoros.org

Address

New York, NY

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

(212) 405-8234

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans:

Shortcuts

Sponsored

Share

Category