Outstanding Americans by Choice
The Outstanding Americans by Choice initiative recognizes the outstanding achievements of naturalized U.S. citizens. Through civic participation, professional achievement, and responsible citizenship, recipients of this honor have demonstrated their commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans.
USCIS will recognize naturalized citizens who have made significant contributions to both their community and their adopted country on a case-by-case basis.
Note: The following biographies have been provided by the ABC recipients.
2014
Alejandro N. Mayorkas was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security on December 23, 2013. Since 2009, following his nomination by President Obama and subsequent confirmation, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas served as the Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency charged with operating the largest immigration system in the world.
2013
In the late 1990s, Dr. Jindal performed the world's first operation to link a tube with blood vessels in the damaged liver of a critically ill six-year-old boy. Dr. Jindal also set up the first comprehensive kidney dialysis and kidney transplant program in Guyana, South America, and successfully performed the first living kidney transplant in that country.
At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, Dr. Quiñones is a Professor of Neurological Surgery and Oncology, Neuroscience, and Cellular and Molecular Medicine. In addition to directing the Brain Tumor Surgery Program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and the Pituitary Surgery Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Quiñones leads the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Laboratory.
Dr. Olga B. Koper works in the Business and Open Innovation Group for Energy and Environment at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, OH, the largest nonprofit research organization in the world. Previously, she was Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at NanoScale Corporation.
Anna Mongayt co-founded Upstart, a crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money in exchange for a portion of their future income. Upstart is enabling young people to alleviate financial burdens such as student loans or living expenses by monetizing their future potential.
John A. Herrera is Senior Vice President for Latino Hispanic Affairs at Self-Help Services Corporation, a community development financial institution (CDFI). He also co-founded the Latino Community Credit Union, the first fully bilingual financial institution in the state of North Carolina and a national model for providing banking services to immigrants and the underserved.
Dr. Amarpreet S. Sawhney is the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ocular Therapeutix, Inc., a company focused on unmet needs in ophthalmic surgical wound management and drug delivery. Previously, he was founder and CEO of Confluent Surgical; Chairman of MarketRx; technology founder of Focal, Inc. and Access Closure, Inc. He holds more than 120 patents, which form the basis for several first-of-a-kind medical devices that have helped millions of patients worldwide.
Dr. Sivalingam Sivananthan is a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor and Director of the Microphysics Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also the founder of the high-tech, Bell Labs-styled incubator, Sivananthan Laboratories, Inc., and its group companies, based in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
Ferozan Alamshahi Akbari arrived at the San Francisco International Airport in 1984 as a refugee. She stepped off the airplane, escaping persecution in Afghanistan with her husband, four small children ranging from five months to six years old, and four bags containing clothes for the children. She was overwhelmed with happiness to make it to the United States after seven long months in a Pakistani refugee camp, and describes the day she stepped foot on U.S. soil as the happiest day of her life.
Pearl Chang is the Deputy Chief of the Office of Policy and Strategy at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). She was born in China and was naturalized in 1972 in Memphis, TN.