AAO research
EB-1A awards — AAO decision JAN042016_01B2203: Appeal dismissed. Review source status, procedural posture and the official USCIS PDF.
Decision summary: The AAO Appeal dismissed Judging and scholarly authorship were met. The student poster award lacked national/international recognition; association rules did not require outstanding achievements; citations to petitioner’s papers were not material about petitioner; original contributions were not shown to have field-wide impact.
Source reviewed: This page summarizes the specific AAO source and posture recorded in the completed source-review tracker. It does not turn a nonprecedent decision into a general rule.
Scope classification from review: Verified source is an AAO EB-1A extraordinary-ability proceeding.. This is a source-review label, not a legal conclusion.
Decision snapshot
Decision ID | JAN042016_01B2203 |
|---|---|
Decision date as printed | January 4, 2016 |
Classification / field stated in source | EB-1A extraordinary-ability petition appeal |
Procedural posture | EB-1A appeal dismissed after two criteria; formal final merits not reached, with aggregate assessment. |
Operative disposition | Appeal dismissed |
Final-merits status | AAO expressly stated only two criteria were satisfied, so it did not provide the type of formal final-merits determination; aggregate discussion did not establish required acclaim. |
What the AAO decision addressed
Judging and scholarly authorship were met. The student poster award lacked national/international recognition; association rules did not require outstanding achievements; citations to petitioner’s papers were not material about petitioner; original contributions were not shown to have field-wide impact.
Criterion-by-criterion status in this source
These labels reproduce the source-review record. “Not considered,” “not reached,” and “not coded” do not mean the criterion failed. A Director finding recited as background is not an AAO holding unless the decision says so.
Criterion | Source-review status |
|---|---|
Awards | |
Membership | |
Published material about the person | Not met — p. 4 |
Judging the work of others | met — p. 4 |
Original contributions of major significance | |
Scholarly authorship | met — p. 7 |
Artistic display or showcases | Not coded — source PDF |
Leading or critical role | Not coded — source PDF |
High salary or remuneration | Not coded — source PDF |
Commercial success in the performing arts | Not coded — source PDF |
Source-cited findings recorded in review
claim: Petitioner was a researcher in toxicogenomics; the Director had found judging, authorship, and awards, but AAO reviewed six claimed criteria.; pages: 1; 2
claim: Awards and association membership were not contested on appeal and were expressly abandoned.; pages: 2; 3
claim: Articles citing the petitioner’s research were not published material about the petitioner; criterion not met.; pages: 4
claim: Peer review for four academic journals and authorship of scholarly articles were accepted.; pages: 4; 7
claim: Expert letters and citation references did not corroborate major field-wide impact of the petitioner’s contributions.; pages: 5; 6; 7
claim: Only judging and scholarly authorship were met; the appeal was dismissed without formal final merits, with aggregate no-acclaim discussion.; pages: 7; 8
How this record may be used in research
Comparison scope: Eligible for individual case discussion
Page-level source trail
Use the official PDF and the cited physical page numbers to check each statement.
How to use this record
This is a historical, nonprecedent AAO decision about its own administrative record. It is not a prediction, success rate, or current filing instruction. Compare the issue and procedural stage before drawing an analogy. The current framework is in the USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 2.
Related corpus research
Full-corpus research index
Awards research
Membership research
Published material about the person research
Judging the work of others research
Original contributions of major significance research
Scholarly authorship research
Medicine sector research
Final Merits research
Coverage research
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