NEW YORK -- Amandeep Singh, a fourth-year M.D./Ph.D. Weill Cornell Medical College student in the Tri-Institutional Medical Scientist Training Program affiliated with Rockefeller University and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has been awarded a spring 2006 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

The fellowships are grants for up to two years of graduate study in the United States and are awarded to 30 students nationwide each year who are either resident aliens, naturalized U.S. citizens or the child of parents who are both naturalized U.S. citizens.

"I feel honored to have been awarded this fellowship," said Singh. "It is very humbling to see everything that my fellow recipients are doing, and it is truly a pleasure to be selected alongside them."

Singh was born in 1979 in Amritsar, India, and his family moved to the United States when he was 5. During his undergraduate study at Cornell, where he earned a B.A. in biology in 2002, Singh was co-founder and president of the Cornell Bhangra Club, where he choreographed and directed three traditional Indian dance teams for national and international competitions. He also organizes the Surat Sikh Conference, an annual three-day conference that attracts more than 150 Sikh students and professionals to Weill Cornell from across the world. The conference features lectures, small-group sessions, workshops and a poster session that focuses on nonprofit community service organizations.

"I consider myself an American with strong cultural ties to India," said Singh. "I value both my rich Indian background and my upbringing as an American."

In the Tri-Institutional Medical Scientist Training Program, Singh is studying energy utilization in obese individuals. After finishing medical school and his residency, Singh hopes to practice medicine and conduct research bridging the gap between the clinical, scientific and social aspects of obesity.

Gabriel Miller is a writer with Weill Cornell Medical College's Office of Public Affairs.