NIW (National Interest Waiver) Recommendation Letter 2

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing in enthusiastic support for [the petitioner's] petition for immigration to the United States. Specifically, I am writing to provide evidence that [the petitioner's] work is in the national interest of this country.

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

I direct a corn breeding program to develop multiple stress-tolerant corn lines and hybrids for 10 years at the University of XXXX. The program has received grants from the Department of Agriculture of the United States. I also served as an Associates Editor [for] the peer-reviewed journal Crop Science for six years and have reviewed more than 60 papers every year.

[The petitioner] joined my research group in September, 2006. I hand-selected him out of 12 high-qualified applicants for his impressive and strong educational and research experience and skills in traditional plant breeding, molecular biology and statistics.

[The petitioner] is a key scientist in my corn breeding and genetics laboratory. He is responsible for discovering drought and heat tolerance genes, identifying new tolerance, and developing molecular breeding tools for genetic improvement of stress tolerance. The accomplishment of this project would significantly contribute to the crop production under water stressed environments. During his time in my laboratory, he published a total of four peer-reviewed papers and has already submitted a paper for publication from his post-doctoral research. [The petitioner's] papers attracted international interests. I am sure that these results will become cited worldwide in the next few years. [The petitioner] discovered quantitative trait loci for soybean resistance to soybean cyst nematode (SCN), the first major pest in soybean. His discoveries enhanced our understanding in development of SCN-resistant cultivars.

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

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