Two Penn affiliates named 2022 Soros Fellows

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Rishi Goel, a second-year student in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Kingson Lin, who graduated with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the School of Arts & Sciences in 2017, have each received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which provides graduate school funding for immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. 

Goel and Lin are among the 30 chosen as 2022 Soros Fellows from more than 1,800 applicants. Each Fellow receives as much as $90,000 over two years. 

Goel will graduate with his medical degree in 2024 and plans to pursue a career as a physician-scientist using innovations in immunology research to improve patient care. At Penn, he is a research fellow in the laboratory of E. John Wherry, focusing on understanding immune responses to viral pathogens. This work has led to new insights into the development of immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection and mRNA vaccination. Goel also helped launch the Immune Health Project at Penn, which aims to bring immune profiling into the clinic to better diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. He has published more than 20 academic papers and has been engaged in science communication work around COVID vaccines for general-interest publications. Goel graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and a minor in applied statistics from the University of Michigan in 2017, and a master’s degree in immunology from the University of Oxford in 2018. He then completed an Intramural Research Training Award Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before starting his medical education at Penn. Goel was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to parents who were immigrants from Lucknow, India.

Having graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Penn in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry with a minor in Spanish and a master’s degree in organic chemistry, Lin is pursuing an M.D./Ph.D. in experimental pathology at Yale University. Now in his fifth year there, he is researching the design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel chemotherapeutics for drug-resistant brain cancers. His research has led to the discovery of a novel chemotherapeutic agent for drug resistant brain cancer. Lin has since co-founded a company with his research advisers at Yale to bring these new drugs to the clinic. At Penn, Lin worked in the laboratory of chemistry Professor Gary Molander on a novel paradigm for organic synthesis utilizing photoredox/nickel dual catalysis to make previously difficult chemical bonds with widespread potential applications ranging from basic science to the pharmaceutical industry. He was a tutor, residential adviser, freshman mentor, and a peer counselor for PENNCAP (the University of Pennsylvania College Achievement Program), after attending the pre-freshman program. Lin was born in New York City to immigrant parents from Fujian, China, where he spent his first five years living with his grandparents, then moving back to Queens to live with his parents. The family eventually settled in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Goel applied for the Soros Fellowship with assistance from Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

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