Overview

• He publicly detailed the milestone in a LinkedIn post, writing that the "visa clock... finally stopped ticking."
• His path began in August 2011 on an F-1 visa to pursue a master’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
• He completed seven years of fully funded graduate study and five years of postdoctoral training at Sandia National Laboratories, then started a tenure-track role at Colorado School of Mines in January 2024.
• He navigated F-1 renewals, OPT with STEM extension, and a cap-gap exempt H-1B obtained in 2020, receiving an exception for stamping along with a note stating, "You matter to us and to the U.S."
• He pursued the EB1A route, faced a Request for Evidence questioning his work’s relevance, submitted further documentation, and finalized residency after re-entering on H-1B and taking a brief reset trip to Mexico.