Tanedo

Filipino-American graduate student Philip Tanedo and Lebanese-American Shirag Shemmassian '08 have each received a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, the fellowship board announced earlier this month.

A second-year Ph.D. student in theoretical particle physics, Tanedo, 25, was among the 30 awardees. Fellows are immigrants or children of immigrants and are provided two-year cash grants of up to $50,000 and tuition support of up to $40,000.

Tanedo was born and raised in Los Angeles to parents who emigrated from the Philippines and are now naturalized citizens. In addition to his research, Tanedo works as a mentor and teacher to high school students and blogs for the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy Web site featuring American researchers working on the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

A researcher in supersymmetry and extra dimensions, Tanedo intends to become a professor of theoretical physics. He is a 2005 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar as well as a National Science Foundation Fellow.

Shemmassian, 23, received his bachelor's degree in human development from the College of Human Ecology, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of California-Los Angeles. His parents emigrated from Lebanon to St. Louis during the Lebanese Civil War and are now naturalized U.S. citizens living in California.

The 2010 Soros fellows were chosen from 890 applicants, from 297 undergraduate and 140 graduate institutions. The program is funded by income from a $75 million charitable trust created by philanthropists Paul and Daisy Soros in 1997.