PHILADELPHIA –University of Pennsylvania graduate students Yoonhee Patricia Ha and Yin Li are among 30 students from across the United States awarded 2011 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Both are enrolled in Penn M.D./Ph.D. programs.

The Fellowships “highlight the extraordinary promise, diversity, drive and determination of recent immigrants – and children of immigrants -- to this country,” according to the Soros’ trust literature.  Each fellow will receive tuition and living expenses of as much as $90,000 over two academic years. 

Ha, a first-year M.D./Ph.D. student at Penn, was born in the United States to immigrants from South Korea who are now naturalized citizens.  Her doctoral studies are in epidemiology. She previously completed a master’s degree in public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of London, where she was a Marshall Scholar. As an undergraduate at The Ohio State University, Ha earned bachelor’s degrees in microbiology, finance and Korean. While there, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, selected as a Harry S. Truman Scholar and named to the USA Today All-USA College Academic First Team.  Ha has interned with the World Health Organization in Geneva, American Cancer Society in Washington, D.C., and non-governmental organizations in London and Nairobi.  She plans to become a physician-researcher.

Li, a first year Ph.D. student in neuroscience, studying visual perception and decision-making at Penn, was born in China.  Now a permanent U.S. resident, he immigrated to America when he was nine years old. As a high school junior, he interned in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel. The resulting research on a memory protein won Yin the top prize at the 2003 Siemens Westinghouse Science Competition.

Li graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard in 2008.  He has completed two years of medical school at Penn, where he cofounded an a cappella group that sings at hospitals and nursing homes.  His ultimate goal is to improve the understanding and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Paul and Daisy Soros, Hungarian immigrants and American philanthropists, established the Soros Fellowships for New Americans in 1998.  The Fellowship Program is funded by income from a charitable trust of $75 million. Since its inception, more than $35 million dollars have been spent in support of graduate education of new Americans.

Additional information about the fellowship is available at www.pdsoros.org.