6 Indian American Students Win $90,000 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships

India-West Staff Reporter

NEW YORK, NY – Six Indian Americans are among the 30 winners of the 2024 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a merit-based graduate school program for immigrants and children of immigrants. Selected from 2,323 applicants, the 30 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellows are chosen for their achievements and their potential to make meaningful contributions to the United States across fields of study. They will each receive up to $90,000 in funding to support their graduate studies at institutions across the country.

The six Indian Americans who are on the list: Aayush Karan, Akshay Swaminathan, Keerthana Hogirala, Malavika Kannan, Shubhayu Bhattacharyay, and Ananya Agustin Malhotra.

Since the Fellowship’s founding 26 years ago, the program has provided more than $80 million in funding, and recipients have studied a range of fields from medicine and the arts to law and business.

“As we welcome these impressive new Fellows to our community, I am filled with pride and hope for the bright futures they will have professionally and as they give back to our country. Their stories demonstrate the strength and vitality inherent in the immigrant identity—they aren’t afraid to take risks and think big,” Daisy Soros, co-founder of the program, said.

The alumni network includes US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who is the first surgeon general of Indian descent and helped lead the national response to Ebola, Zika, and the coronavirus.

More about this year’s winners:

Aayush Karan: Fellowship awarded to support work towards a PhD in quantum science and engineering at Harvard University.

Ananya Agustin Malhotra: Fellowship awarded to support a JD at Yale.

Akshay Swaminathan: Fellowship awarded to support an MD/PhD in biomedical data science at Stanford University.

Keerthana Hogirala: Fellowship awarded to support an MBA/MPP at the University of Chicago.

Malavika Kannan: Fellowship awarded to support an MFA in fiction.

Shubhayu Bhattacharyay: Fellowship awarded to pursue an MD at Harvard University.