NIW (National Interest Waiver) Recommendation Letter 2

Dear Sir or Madam:

I write in enthusiastic support of [the petitioner's] petition to immigrate to the United States, and specifically to offer evidence that [the petitioner's] work serves the national interest of this country.

I was the major advisor for [the petitioner's] PhD studies in Genetics and a committee member for [the petitioner's] Master's studies in Statistics at the University of Missouri-Columbia during 1999-2005. [The petitioner] also worked in my laboratory as a postdoctoral research associate during 2005-2006. I state without reservation that [the petitioner] is an outstanding researcher in crop science.

For 10 years I have directed a corn breeding program at the University of XXXX that develops stress-tolerant corn lines and hybrids. The program has received grants from the United States Department of Agriculture. I also served six years as an associate editor for the peer-reviewed journal Crop Science and review more than 60 papers each year.

[The petitioner] joined my research group in September, 2006. I selected him by hand from 12 highly qualified applicants because of his strong educational and research background and his skills in traditional plant breeding, molecular biology, and statistics.

[The petitioner] is a key scientist in my corn breeding and genetics laboratory. He works on identifying drought and heat tolerance genes, finding new tolerance traits, and building molecular breeding tools to improve stress tolerance genetically. Success in this project would contribute significantly to crop production in water-stressed environments. While in my laboratory he published four peer-reviewed papers and has already submitted a paper drawn from his post-doctoral research. Those papers have attracted international interest, and I am confident they will be cited worldwide within the next few years. [The petitioner] also identified quantitative trait loci for soybean resistance to soybean cyst nematode (SCN), the leading pest in soybean, and his findings advanced our understanding of how to develop SCN-resistant cultivars.

[The petitioner's] other major achievements include three novel techniques for uncovering the genetic basis of complex traits: meta-analysis of QTL locations, pooled interval mapping analysis, and haplotype block-based interval mapping. [The petitioner's] work is pioneering and innovative, and [the petitioner's] accomplishments as a PhD student far exceed those of peers at the same career stage, earning an international reputation as an outstanding researcher. I therefore strongly believe that [the petitioner] is an exceptionally outstanding scientist and that granting permanent residency would clearly benefit our national interest.

Yours Truly,
XXXX, PhD
Associates Professor
Director of XXXX Program
at University of XXXX