Soros Fellowship for New Americans Announces 2024 Recipients

Ananya Agustin Malhotra, the daughter of immigrants who came to the United States from India and the Philippines, has been named a 2024 recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Malhotra plans to join the Yale Law School class of 2027 in the fall.

Malhotra is among 30 recipients selected from a pool of more than 2,300 applicants for the fellowship, which is a merit-based graduate program for students who are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Fellows were selected for their achievements and their potential to make meaningful contributions to the United States across various academic fields. They will each receive up to $90,000 in funding to support their graduate studies.

“Each Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow embodies the spirit of resilience, innovation, and commitment to excellence that defines the immigrant experience,” said Fellowship Director Craig Harwood. “Together, they represent a diverse tapestry of backgrounds, perspectives, and aspirations, poised to make enduring contributions to their fields and communities.”

Malhotra was born in Georgia to parents who had immigrated to the United States from Obando, Bulacan, Philippines and New Delhi, India. Her experiences growing up in a bicultural and interfaith household inform her scholarly work on global history, international law, and peace and security issues.

Malhotra graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University. She earned an M.Phil. as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where she researched how histories of empire and anticolonialism shape the international order. Over the past four years, Malhotra has studied and advocated for nuclear disarmament and risk reduction at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans was founded in 1997 to support immigrants and children of immigrants pursuing higher education. The program was established in recognition of the contributions New Americans have made to American life and in gratitude for the opportunities the United States afforded the fellowship’s founders.

Yale Law School 2024 Soros Fellow Biography:

Ananya Agustin Malhotra

Born and raised in the state of Georgia, Ananya Agustin Malhotra is the daughter of immigrants from Obando, Bulacan, Philippines and New Delhi, India. Raised in a bicultural and interfaith household, Ananya is deeply motivated by her mother and father’s family histories to advocate for a more just and peaceful future in United States foreign policy.

Ananya’s interests lie at the intersection of global history, international law, and peace and security issues. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University with a concentration in the School of Public and International Affairs. Her undergraduate thesis, based on oral histories with New Mexican Downwinders, explored the human legacies of the 1945 Trinity Test and the U.S. nuclear age. At Princeton, Ananya served as president of the Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources, and Education (SHARE) Peer Program, where she was first introduced to survivor-centered advocacy. 

As a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, Ananya earned an M.Phil. in modern European history with distinction, studying the histories of empire and anticolonialism in shaping international order. Her dissertation research explored the role of epistemology in the global intellectual history of decolonization and has been published in Global Histories and the Journal of the History of Ideas blog. For the last four years, Ananya has advocated for nuclear disarmament and risk reduction through her research, scholarship, and public commentary. Ananya has worked in Washington, D.C., at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft to advance policies aimed at fostering a safer and more peaceful world. 

Ananya has also worked or held internships at the Logische Phantasie Lab, U.N. Women, and the European Roma Rights Centre, and is a member of the Younger Generation Leaders Network on Euro-Atlantic Security (YGLN) and the British American Security Information Council’s Emerging Voices Network. She has authored and co-authored several policy briefs and has collaborated on projects with Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. Some of her other writing and work can be found in Inkstick Media, The Antonym Magazine, The American Oxonian, and the Oxford Review of Books.