O-1A Judging Criterion

USCIS wants to see that you have participated as a judge of the work of others in your field. This is the easiest criterion to document when applicable and the least ambiguous: you either have judged or you haven't. What matters is the standing of the venue where you judged.

Types of evidence

Peer-review invitations

Formal invitations to review for peer-reviewed journals or conferences, with dates and journal/conference names.

Editorial board membership

Documentation of editorial-board or advisory-board membership at recognised journals or trade publications.

Grant or funding-committee service

Selection to review grant applications for NIH, NSF, ERC, private foundations, or corporate innovation grants.

Awards jury membership

Service as a juror or panellist for industry awards, competitions, or fellowship selection committees.

Hackathon / accelerator judging

Documented service as a judge at hackathons, accelerator demo days, or startup competitions with named organisers.

Documentation of the invitation

Screenshots of platforms (Manuscript Central, OpenReview), thank-you letters from organisers, or public announcements naming you as judge.

Evidence by profession

Startup founders

Judging at YC demo day, Techstars, accelerator programmes, pitch competitions (Startup Battlefield, SXSW, LAUNCH). Investment-committee service also qualifies.

Researchers

Peer review for journals (Nature, Science, field-specific); program-committee service at recognised conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ACL); NIH / NSF study-section membership.

Executives

Board or advisory-committee service; industry-award jury membership; management-education case-writing committees.

Engineers

Peer review at conferences (ICML, NeurIPS, ACL, SIGGRAPH, KubeCon); program-committee membership; open-source project maintainer / PR reviewer role.

Athletes

Coaching-panel selection judging, sport-specific judging at competitions, athlete-advisory-board membership. Common in judged sports (gymnastics, skating, boxing).

Consultants

Recognition-award jury service; industry standards-committee membership; case-competition judging at top MBA programmes.

How we build this criterion

Compile every judging invitation

We collect email invitations, thank-you letters, platform screenshots, and public announcements listing you as judge or reviewer.

Document the venue's standing

For each judging engagement, we attach information about the conference, journal, competition, or award's history and significance.

Show pattern of service

We organise the exhibit chronologically so USCIS sees sustained, ongoing service — not a one-time judging engagement.