Minhas studies medicine at Stanford.
AB Wire
WASHINGTON, DC: Paras Singh Minhas, a student at the Stanford School of Medicine, is the only Indian American amongst the 30 recipients of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, for 2015.
The 30 Soros fellows were selected for their potential to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture or in their academic fields, and were selected from a pool of 1,200 applicants. Each of the fellows will receive grants of up to $90,000 for graduate programs of their choice.
“I admire the Fellows’ ambition, accomplishments and work ethic,” said Daisy M. Soros, who co-founded the program in 1997 with her late husband, Paul Soros, in a statement. “They underscore the importance of New Americans to this country.”
Minhas was selected to support his work toward an MD and a PhD in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine
Minhas would like to curtail the alarming rate at which neurodegenerative disorders are increasing across the globe. By finding novel research strategies and investigating the political and environmental questions behind neurodegenerative disorders, he hopes to one-day practice medicine in a world where physicians are able to provide cures for them, the award committee noted.
Minhas was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of two Sikh immigrants. At a young age, he was exposed to the debilitating consequences of neurological diseases, which impacted his own family members. Refusing to be silent, he began finding his voice through the art of debate, winning local, state, and national competitions starting in high school and later in the William Pitt Debating Union at the University of Pittsburgh.
During his time at the University of Pittsburgh, Minhas founded the Longitude Pittsburgh Organization, an NGO dedicated to empowering adolescent orphans in Ghana and India and helping them to obtain sustainable careers. He also became the first president of the Student Health Advisory Board, pioneering mental health initiatives both on campus and in the city of Pittsburgh.
He has been awarded the Amgen, Goldwater, and Marshall Scholarships for his insightful research in neurology and policy initiatives in psychiatry.
Now a student at Stanford School of Medicine, Minhas continues to engage with disadvantaged communities to help bridge healthcare gaps. He serves as manager for the Pacific Free Clinic in San Jose and continues to run his NGO, frequenting villages in Ghana. Paras is pursuing an MD/PhD in neuroscience, actively researching the etiologies of neurodegenerative diseases. As a future physician-scientist, he hopes to design measures that will rid the world of debilitating neurological and mental conditions.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is a past recipient of the award.