Journey/Timeline to NIW and EB1A Approval
1/30/2023: Started preparing the NIW petition letter and explored ideas with ChatGPT.
2/24/2023: Emailed my draft petition letter to Vincent Lau, an immigration lawyer, for a consult session.
3/9/2023: Consulted with Vincent Lau(https://www.clarklau.com/). Vincent is a great lawyer but didn't have bandwidth to take my case at that time. He assessed and recommended me for NIW but not EB1A case as he thinks the minimum for citation for EB1A is ~100. He provided me with a great story line for NIW "Explain in a non technical way: what's the key problem that this field is facing (needs to be recognized by scholarly, media etc) and how you are solving it."
3/10/2023-4/20/2023: Reached out to recommenders, both personal connections and independent individuals who cited my papers. Contemplated between hiring a lawyer and proceeding independently, ultimately deciding to submit both NIW and EB1A applications.
4/27/2023: Mailed out the NIW petition package with premium processing.
4/30/2023: Mailed out my EB1A petition package with premium processing.
5/9/2023: NIW case approved (Cost: $700 + $2500 for premium processing)
5/15/2023: EB1A case approved (Cost: $700 + $2500 for premium processing).
