I self-petitioned my EB-1A.
No lawyer. No sponsor. Here's what I learned.
When I started my PhD at the University of Tennessee, I knew two things: I wanted to work on energy systems that would actually matter, and I wanted to stay in the United States to do it. What I didn't know was whether I could.
I had come from Pakistan on a USAID scholarship. I had a master's degree from NUST — Pakistan's top engineering university — and a research exchange at Oregon State. I had published papers. I had won grants. I had been selected to research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest science and energy lab in the US Department of Energy system.
But when people talked about immigration, they talked about employers and attorneys and costs I couldn't afford and timelines I couldn't predict. Nobody talked about the possibility that my own work could be my pathway.
The EB-1A is a green card for people of extraordinary ability. It doesn't require an employer. It doesn't require an attorney. It requires evidence — specific, documented evidence — that you have risen to the top of your field.
When I started researching it, I realized something: I had been building that evidence for years without knowing it.
My research at ORNL had been adopted by DOE-funded projects. My publications were being cited by researchers at Tsinghua and Glasgow. I had been invited to review papers for the IEA Heat Pump Conference. I had served as a juror for the DOE Solar Decathlon. I had been selected as an IMPEL innovator by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. I was now leading the development of California's 2028 building energy codes at the California Energy Commission.
I didn't need to do more. I needed to tell the story of what I had already done.
So I wrote my own petition. 55 pages. Organized around five criteria. Grounded in every piece of evidence I had — papers, letters, conference invitations, DOE websites, award emails.
I filed it in May 2025. Premium processing. It was approved.
And then I put the entire petition on GitHub. Because I know how many PhDs are sitting exactly where I was — accomplished, uncertain, and looking for someone who has done this and can show them how.
That's what Coaching Alley is.