The Petitioner seeks employment-based second preference (EB-2) immigrant classification as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, as well as a national interest waiver of the job offer requirement attached to this classification. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b )(2), 8 U.S.C. § 1 l 53(b )(2).
Service Center Operations (SCOPS) denied the petition, concluding that the Petitioner qualified for classification as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, but that she had not established that a waiver of the required job offer, and thus of the labor certification, would be in the national interest.. The matter is now before us on appeal pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 103.3.
The Petitioner bears the burden ofproof to demonstrate eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence. Matter ofChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). We review the questions in this matter de novo. Matter of Christa's, Inc., 26 I&N Dec. 537,537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal.
Law
To qualify for the underlying EB-2 visa classification, a petitioner must establish they are an advanced degree professional or an individual of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Section 203(b )(2)(A) of the Act.
If a petitioner establishes eligibility for the underlying EB-2 classification, they must then demonstrate that they merit a discretionary waiver of the job offer requirement "in the national interest." Section 203(b )(2)(B)(i) ofthe Act. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884, 889 (AAO 2016), provides the framework for adjudicating national interest waiver petitions. Dhanasar states that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may, as matter of discretion, 1 grant a national interest waiver if the petitioner demonstrates that:
- The proposed endeavor has both substantial merit and national importance;
- The individual is well-positioned to advance their proposed endeavor; and
- On balance, waiving the job offer requirement would benefit the United States.
Id.
Analysis
SCOPS found that the Petitioner qualifies as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree.2 The sole issue to be determined is whether the Petitioner has established that a waiver ofthe requirement of a job offer, and thus a labor certification, would be in the national interest.
At the time of filing, the Petitioner was working as a Senior Principal Engineer, Machine Leaming at I I. 3 She indicated that he her proposed endeavor is to continue her "research on developing a novel and comprehensive approach for foundational machine learning model disentanglement, generalizable to diverse modalities, domains, and applications in order to facilitate interpretability and machine learning model control across countless research fields." The Petitioner further asserted that she planned "to discover the underlying mechanism of content representation to unlock many applications across fields, including (but not limited to) enhancement and understanding of the differentiation between artificial intelligence (Al) generated content and human generated content, domain shift through disentanglement, interpretability and control through disentanglement, and more."
As discussed below, we conclude the Petitioner has not established eligibility for a national interest waiver under the analytical framework set forth in Dhanasar.
A. Substantial Merit and National Importance of the Proposed Endeavor
The first prong, substantial merit and national importance, focuses on the specific endeavor that the individual proposes to undertake. Matter ofDhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. at 889. The endeavor's merit may be demonstrated in a range of areas such as business, entrepreneurialism, science, technology, culture, health, or education. Id. We agree with SCOPS' determination that the Petitioner's endeavor has substantial merit.
In determining whether the proposed endeavor has national importance, we consider its potential prospective impact. Id. We withdraw SCOPS' determination that the Petitioner did not establish the national importance of her proposed endeavor under Dhanasar 's first prong. As evidence that her proposed endeavor has substantial merit and national importance, the Petitioner provided information about the benefits ofresearch aimed at machine learning and trustworthy AI. She also presented letters of support discussing how her undertaking helps contribute to advancements in AI interpretability and 2 The Petitioner received a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (2011) from.~ ________..,......
fairness. In addition, the Petitioner submitted documentation indicating that the benefit of her proposed research offers broader implications in the machine learning field, as the results are disseminated to others in the field through scientific journals and conferences. As the Petitioner has demonstrated both the substantial merit and national importance of her proposed research, she has established that she meets the first prong of the Dhanasar framework.
B. Well Positioned to Advance the Proposed Endeavor
The second prong shifts the focus from the proposed endeavor to the individual. Id. at 890. To determine whether they are well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor, we consider factors including, but not limited to: their education, skills, knowledge and record of success in related or similar efforts; a model or plan for future activities; any progress towards achieving the proposed endeavor; and the interest of potential customers, users, investors, or other relevant entities or individuals.Past record does not show influence or success Id. For the reasons explained below, we withdraw SCOPS' conclusion that the Petitioner meets Dhanasar 's second prong.
The record includes documentation ofthe Petitioner's curriculum vitae, master's degree and transcript, published and presented work, and peer review service. The Petitioner also offered evidence ofarticles that cited to her published work, citation metrics, and letters of support discussing her research. In letters supporting the petition, the Petitioner's references discussed her research projects involving machine learning. 4 For example, Dr. T-H-, a senior technical lead manager at c=]asserted that the Petitioner "mitigated fairness issues for recommendation systems through a novel focus on the sourcing stage. I had the rivile e of co-authorin her Euro ean Conference on Com uter Vision (ECCV) 2022 study, ~-----------------------------~
I
Furthermore, K-T-, another Ph.D. student at I I asserted that he and the Petitioner coauthored a paper, entitled I
.___________________. in which they presented a "new paradigm for solving the problem of having a generative foundation model unlearn information without resulting in the need to extensively retrain them." While K-T- contended that their work "provides the field of machine learning with a new means of addressing copyright and regulatory compliance concerns currently facing large-scale generative models," the Petitioner has not shown that the level of interest in their findings or her record of success in research is sufficient to demonstrate she is well positioned to advance her research endeavor.No interest from users, customers or investors
The Petitioner states that she has coauthored "l peer-reviewed journal article, 4 peer-reviewed conference articles (2 of them first authored), and 1 reprint" "in notable journals and conferences in her field, including Nature Machine Intelligence."6 As it relates to the citation of her work, the Petitioner provided her Google Scholar profiles from January 2025 and, in response to SCOPS' request for evidence (RFE), from June 2025. The most recent profile indicated that her four hi hest cited articles, entitled 1 t(2024),
2024 (2022), and
(2011) each received 6030, 19, 15, and 13
'--------------=----------------' citations, respectively. 7 The Petitioner does not specify how many citations for each of these individual articles were self-citations by her or her coauthors.
The Petitioner also provided 2025 data from Clarivate Analytics (In Cites Essential Science Indicators) regarding baseline citation rates and percentiles by year of publication for the "Computer Science" research field. The Petitioner contends that her 2024 paper, entitled I I' ranked among "the top 0.01 % most cited articles published in 2024 in Computer Science" based on the 6030 citations it has received. 8 Likewise she asserts that her 2024 a er entitled .___________....,..' is "one of the top 1 % most cited articles published in 2024 in Computer Science" based on its 19 citations. She also indicates that her 2022 paper, entitled! I ______________________ __, ' is "one of the top 20% most cited articles
of her citation number in her field with information regarding citation in the larger field of computer science does not sufficiently establish the level of her success or impact in the field of machine learning.
Additionally, the Petitioner submitted an article in Scientometrics written by Lutz Bornmann and Werner Marx, entitled "How to evaluate individual researchers working in the natural and life sciences meaningfully? A proposal of methods based on percentiles of citations." This article presents recommendations for "how to evaluate individual researchers in the natural and life sciences" for purposes of funding and promotion or hiring decisions. The authors state that "publications which are among the 10% most cited publications in their subject area are as a rule called highly cited or excellent" and that "the top 10% based excellence indicator" should be given "the highest weight when comparing the scientific performance of single researchers." While the authors offer proposed methods for bibliometric analysis of research performance, the record does not indicate that their methods have been accepted and implemented by the academic community. Moreover, with respect to citation information from Google Scholar, the authors advise against "using Google Scholar (GS) as a basis for bibliometric analysis. Several studies have pointed out that GS has numerous deficiencies for research evaluation." Moreover, regarding "self-citations," the authors state that "if the question of an evaluation study explicitly means to what extent a scientist has influenced other scientists' work, self-citations should be obviously ignored."
The Petitioner's RFE response included OpenAlex author metrics which she claims compare her citation impact to that of other researchers in the field of "Computer Science." Again, the Petitioner relies on citation information concerning the larger field ofcomputer science and compares her citation frequency in machine learning to that of the larger field, but she has not shown that information extrapolated from the larger field applies equally to each subfield within computer science, including machine learning. Regardless, citation frequency which is quantitative in nature does not reveal the reasons for the citations, which involve a qualitative analysis. In other words, a high citation number might show that others in the field have noticed the Petitioner's work, but it does not confirm that her work has impacted or advanced the field of in such a way that renders her well positioned. 9 Regarding a qualitative analysis of the citations to the Petitioner's work, the record contains partial copies of several articles that cited to her papers (including her paper, entitled.__ _________. .________________________.' for example).Citation record not persuasive These articles include the text of the citation, which the Petitioner asserts highlight the impact of her papers. While we agree with the Petitioner that these citations indicate some degree of interest in her research from her colleagues and peers in the field, this evidence is not sufficient to demonstrate a level ofinterest or a record ofresearch success that renders her well positioned. The articles in the record cite to her work as an example of research done in the field or in their introduction section as part of an overview of current research, but none highlight or comment upon her research in a way that demonstrates she is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor.
As it relates to the Petitioner's education, while her master's degree renders her eligible for the underlying EB-2 visa classification, she has not shown that her academic accomplishments by 9 With respect to the Petitioner's only highly cited paper, entitled • .____________,' we again note that she was listed as one of its more than 500 coauthors and she has not demonstrated that she significantly contributed to this paper in a way distinguishing her from the numerous other coauthors. p. 6 themselves are sufficient to demonstrate that she is well positioned to advance her proposed endeavor. 10 In Dhanasar, the record established that the petitioner held multiple graduate degrees including "two master of science degrees, in mechanical engineering and applied physics, as well as a Ph.D. in engineering." Id. at 891. We look to a variety of factors in determining whether a petitioner is well positioned to advance their proposed endeavor and education is merely one factor among many that may contribute to such a finding.
With respect to her peer review activit the Petitioner resented documentation indicatin that she reviewed manuscripts for ' and
In addition, she provided
'---------------------------------' " emails inviting her to review papers for "IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition" and "International Conference on Pattern Recognition," but she did not submit evidence showing that she completed reviews for these two conferences. Regardless, she has not demonstrated that the level and frequency ofher participation in the widespread peer review process represents a record of success in her field or that it is otherwise an indication that she is well positioned to advance her research endeavor. 11
The record demonstrates that the Petitioner has conducted, published, and presented research during her career, but she has not shown that this work renders her well positioned to advance her proposed research. While we recognize that research must add information to the pool of knowledge in some way to be accepted for publication, presentation, fonding, or academic credit, not every individual who has performed original research will be found to be well positioned to advance their proposed endeavor. Rather, we examine the factors set forth in Dhanasar to determine whether, for instance, the individual's progress towards achieving the goals of the proposed research, record of success in similar efforts, or generation of interest among relevant parties supports such a finding. Id. at 890. The Petitioner, however, has not sufficiently demonstrated that her work constitutes a record ofsuccess or progress in machine learning research rendering her well positioned to advance her proposed endeavor. As the Petitioner has not demonstrated that she is well positioned to advance her proposed research endeavor, she has not established that she satisfies the second prong of the Dhanasar framework.
C. Whether on Balance a Waiver is Beneficial to the United States
The third prong requires a petitioner to demonstrate that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirements of a job offer and thus of a labor certification. Id. at 890-91. In performing this analysis, we may evaluate factors such as: whether, in light of the nature of the individual's qualifications or the proposed endeavor, it would be impractical either for them to secure a job offer or to obtain a labor certification; whether, even assuming that other qualified U.S. workers are available, the United States would still benefit from their contributions; and whether the national interest in their contributions is sufficiently urgent to warrant forgoing the labor certification process. Id. In each case, the factor(s) considered must, taken together, establish that on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the requirements ofa job offer and thus ofa labor certification. Id. at 891.
In denying the petition, SCOPS' decision indicated the Petitioner had not shown that "her knowledge or skills are not easily articulated in a labor certification." SCOPS' decision farther stated: The self-petitioner has not shown an urgent national interest in her own contributions.No urgency shown
The self-petitioner did not submit sufficient evidence to indicate the labor certification process restricts her ability to work in the field or to disseminate her knowledge through publications or presentations. The self-petitioner has not demonstrated that she presents benefits to the United States through her proposed endeavor that outweigh those inherent in the labor certification process.Did not show the waiver outweighs labor certification In addition, the self-petitioner has not shown that she offers contributions of such value that, overall, they would benefit the nation even if other qualified U.S. workers were available.
On appeal, the Petitioner argues that "the requirements of a labor certification would block or delay her collaboration with American institutions, limiting the advancement of her nationally important work." The Petitioner, however, does not specifically explain how her position at I.______, I Iprevents her from engaging in such research collaborations or why her employer is unable to file a labor certification on her behalf The record indicates that the Petitioner has maintained her research collaborations and continued to publish her research since joining.__ _______~ in November 2024. Further, her May 2025 RFE response specifically states that she "is conducting research in an ongoing collaboration with academic partners." This information undermines her arguments regarding the impracticality of obtaining labor certification.
In addition, the Petitioner points to the urgent national interest in her work aimed at developing "a novel and comprehensive approach for foundational machine learning model disentanglement" and to the benefits of her research contributions. She asserts that she is "an immensely valuable resource to the scientific community of the United States" and that "she possesses considerable knowledge, expertise, and skills in a highly specialized field."
For Dhanasar 's third prong, we assess whether the proposed endeavor and the individual being well positioned to advance that endeavor, taken together, provide benefits to the nation such that a waiver of the labor certification requirement outweighs the benefits that ordinarily flow from that p. 8 requirement. 12 Here, the Petitioner has not demonstrated that she is well positioned to advance the proposed endeavor or that her machine learning contributions supersede the benefits of protecting the domestic labor supply inherent in the labor certification process.
While the record includes information about the benefits of research aimed at machine learning and trustworthy AI, this documentation is insufficient to show that the national interest is better served by a waiver of the job offer and thus the labor certification requirement. The labor certification process is intended to ensure that the admission of foreign workers will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers. We acknowledge the Petitioner's master's degree in a STEM field ( electrical engineering), research experience, and findings relating to machine learning. The evidence in the aggregate, however, is not sufficient to demonstrate that a national interest waiver outweighs the benefits inherent to the labor certification process. The Petitioner has not shown that she offers contributions of such value that, on balance, it would be beneficial to the United States to waive the job offer and labor certification requirements even assuming that other qualified U.S. workers are available.
Conclusion
As the Petitioner has not met the requisite second and third prongs ofthe Dhanasar analytical framework, we conclude that she has not established she is eligible for or otherwise merits a national interest waiver as a matter of discretion. The appeal will be dismissed for the above stated reasons, with each considered as an independent and alternate basis for the decision.
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.
NOTICE: This constitutes the final decision in this matter. The filing of a motion will not postpone the effect of the decision. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(l)(iv). Aliens who are not lawfully present, or who are otherwise inadmissible or deportable, may be subject to the commencement of removal proceedings under section 240 ofthe Act through the issuance ofa Form I-862, Notice to Appear. Those proceedings may result in their removal from the United States and possible ineligibility for future visas or other immigration benefits.