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.
For more information about the initiative, please see this fact sheet (PDF, 149.91 KB).
Note: The following biographies have been provided by the ABC recipients.
2013
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.
Ramon Melocarela is an Immigration Services Officer (ISO) at the New York Field Office for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). A native of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Melocarela immigrated to the United States after his marriage and birth of his two children.
A native of Ethiopia, Dr. Tsehaye Teferra is Founder and President of the Ethiopian Community Development Council, Inc. (ECDC). ECDC was established in 1983 to serve a growing Ethiopian refugee community and assist other refugees and immigrants from diverse cultural backgrounds.
2012
Dr. Jan T. Vilcek is a biomedical scientist, educator, inventor and philanthropist. Dr. Vilcek and his wife Marica defected from communist Czechoslovakia and arrived in the United States in 1965 with all their possessions packed inside a pair of suitcases.
Maria Otero was sworn in as Under Secretary of State on August 10, 2009. She oversees and coordinates U.S. foreign relations on the spectrum of civilian security issues across the globe, including democracy, human rights, population, refugees, trafficking in persons, rule of law, counter-narcotics, crisis prevention and response, global criminal justice, and countering violent extremism. She also serves as the President’s Special Representative for Tibetan Issues.
While in medical practice, Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, in March of 2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner, was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 70 countries. In 2006, he was named a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May 2007. Mr. Hosseini has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through The Khaled Hosseini Foundation.
Christopher Che is the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Che International Group, LLC (CIG), a multinational holding company that he founded in 2005, with the objective of creating subsidiary companies in diverse industries through strategic acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances. Under his visionary leadership, in 2007, CIG successfully acquired Hooven-Dayton Corporation (HDC) as its first wholly-owned subsidiary, which he is also leading as President and CEO.
Ms. Ping Fu co-founded Geomagic, a leading U.S. software company which pioneers 3D technologies that fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world. Since 2010, Ms. Fu has been serving on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship board at the White House and is a member of the National Council on Women in Technology. In 2005, Inc. magazine named Ms. Fu, “The Entrepreneur of the Year.”