Two MD and three MD/PhD candidates at Harvard Medical School are among 30 U.S. graduate school students to receive 2020 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a program for immigrants and children of immigrants. Shyam Kiran Akula was born in Arcadia, California, to Indian parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Kuwait when they were forced to leave due to the Gulf War. Akula majored in neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis and worked in a pediatric neurology clinic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, developing a passion for investigating rare diseases and caring for families afflicted with these conditions.
