are named Soros Fellows
Ten current, former and soon-to-be Yale students are among the 31 individuals who have been named 2007 Soros Fellows by the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.
Soros Fellows are chosen from over 800 applicants nationwide. The newly named fellows with Yale ties are current Law School students Yahonnes Cleary, K. Cyrus Habib, Sue Meng, Enrique Schaerer and Ebunoluwa Taiwo; School of Drama student Patricia McGregor; alumni Eunice Cho '00 and Nina Shen Rastogi '02; and Dov Fox and Dror Ladin, who will enter the Law School in the fall of 2007.
In 1997 Paul and Daisy Soros created a charitable trust of $50 million to support graduate study for "New Americans" -- immigrants and children of immigrants. Soros Fellows, selected by an independent panel of distinguished new Americans, receive two years of funding to cover half of the tuition cost of their graduate study at any institution of higher education in the United States, as well as a stipend of $20,000 per year.
"Our criteria are designed to identify people who will make a success of their lives and who will contribute something to this country, in whatever area of endeavor they choose," says George Soros. "In addition to the relevance of graduate study to a candidate's long-term goals, there are three criteria for candidates: creativity, originality and initiative, demonstrated in any area of her/his life; commitment to and capacity for accomplishment, demonstrated through activity that has required drive and sustained effort; and commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights."
Brief profiles of the Yale-affiliated Soros Fellows follow.
Current student awardees
Yahonnes Cleary was born in Massachusetts to parents who emigrated from Jamaica. He is a first-year student at Yale Law School. After receiving a B.A. from Columbia University in 2000, he earned a master's degree from Oxford University in modern history in 2002, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He plans to use his law degree in a career that includes community development and urban policy.
K. Cyrus Habib was born in Maryland to Iranian parents. After completing his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, he earned a master's degree in English literature at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Blind since the age of 9, he pursues photography, competitive downhill skiing, martial arts and other hobbies generally deemed off limits to the blind. A Truman Scholar, he has both interned and worked for U.S. Senators Clinton and Cantwell and served as a communications consultant for John Kerry for President. He is a first-year student at Yale Law School.
Patricia McGregor was born in the Virgin Islands. Her mother comes from an Irish and Italian immigrant family in London, and her father is Afro-Caribbean. McGregor completed her undergraduate studies at Southern Methodist University and is pursuing an M.F.A. in directing at Yale's School of Drama. As a director, actor and stage manager, she has collaborated with some of the world's leading theater artists. She hopes to use theater to give voice to "neglected stories."
Sue Meng was born in China and came to the United States when she was 6 years old. She majored in history and literature at Harvard University and completed master's degrees in both English literature and modern Chinese studies as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Meng is in her first year at Yale Law School. Meng considers herself primarily a writer. She has been the fiction editor of the Harvard Advocate, editor of a Harvard guide for student travels and a summer intern at ABC News, Forbes Magazine and the Washington Post.
Enrique Schaerer was born in Nevada to parents who emigrated from Paraguay. He graduated first in his class at the University of Notre Dame, majoring in political science and finance. He is in his second year at Yale Law School, where he is an editor of the Yale Law Journal. At Yale, he represents asylum seekers as part of the Immigration Legal Services clinic and teaches a class at a local high school.
Ebunoluwa Taiwo was born in California to parents who emigrated from Nigeria. She studied political science, African and African-American studies and French at Ohio State University and then earned a master's degree from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. She is currently in her second year at Yale Law School, where she is co-director of the Yale Civil Rights Project, treasurer of the Black Law Students Association and co-chair of Women and Youth Supporting Each Other -- a youth mentorship program that works with teenage girls in Greater New Haven. She also volunteers as a French translator in the Yale Law School immigration clinic.
Alumni recipients
Eunice Cho was born in Illinois to Korean parents. She graduated from Yale in 2000 with distinction in the double majors of American studies and ethnicity, race and migration. Now a first-year student at Stanford Law School, she intends to pursue a career as an immigration lawyer, a political activist and a legal scholar of migration issues.
Nina Shen Rastogi was born in New Jersey. Her mother is an immigrant from Taiwan, and her father was born in India. She is currently an associate editor at Barnes and Noble Publishing, where she helped establish a major new series of Shakespeare's complete works. After graduating from Yale with a bachelor's degree in English, she earned a master's degree in Shakespearean studies from King's College London and the Globe Theatre. She plans to use her Soros Fellowship to pursue a master's degree in journalism.
Incoming student honorees
Dov Fox was born in Rehovot, Israel. He earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University and is currently pursuing a D.Phil. in political theory at Oxford, where he is a Rhodes Scholar. He will matriculate at Yale Law School in September.
Dror Ladin was born in Massachusetts to parents who emigrated from Israel. He earned his undergraduate degree from Vassar College and is currently a senior research and policy fellow at the African American Policy Forum. He will attend Yale Law School in September.
Including this year's winners, 293 fellowships have been given in the past 10 years. Alumni of the program include the authors of 27 books, holders of 24 patents, composers whose work was premiered by leading orchestras and 35 law clerks for federal judges, with five clerking at the U.S. Supreme Court. Since the program's inception, over $23 million dollars have been spent in support of graduate education for new Americans.
T H I S
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Yale nurses Linda Pellico and Geralyn Spollett are lauded . . .
Past, present and future Elis are named Soros Fellows
Study finds that yearning -- not disbelief -- is defining feature of grief
Record number of city students taking part in annual science fair on campus
Conference to explore new collaborations with Turkey
IN MEMORIAM
B. Davie Napier: Former Yale trustee, professor and preacher
James B. Crowley: Specialist in the history of modern Japan
Paul Sevier Minear: A leading scholar of the New Testament
Kathryn Perrone: Assistant to the president
Campus Notes
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