EB-2 NIW Chances in Geotechnical / Earthquake Engineering with Low Citation Count?
I’m trying to realistically evaluate my chances for an EB-2 NIW petition and wanted to hear opinions from people who went through the process, especially in civil/geotechnical engineering.
Background:
- Started PhD in Civil Engineering in the U.S. in August
- Research area: earthquake engineering, geotechnical engineering, soil/site effects, liquefaction, ground response, etc.
- Previously completed my MS abroad
- Currently working on research related to seismic hazards and soil behavior
- One first-author peer-reviewed journal paper is expected next year
- Also working on another peer-reviewed journal paper currently
- Planning to start reviewing papers for journals through my advisor
- Long-term goal is to continue research in seismic hazard mitigation and infrastructure resilience in the U.S.
My concern is that geotechnical earthquake engineering is a pretty niche field, and papers in this area usually accumulate citations slowly compared to fields like CS, biomedical engineering, AI, etc. Because of that, I’m not sure whether applying early for NIW would be viewed as too weak. I know NIW is not purely citation-based, but most successful cases I see online seem to have much higher citation counts. On the other hand, I’ve also heard of PhD students getting approved with relatively modest profiles if the proposed endeavor and recommendation letters were strong.
Do you think applying in the near future would realistically have a low probability of approval, or could it still be worth attempting with a strong petition package?
Thank you!