Yes, students outside the United States can join the YRI Fellowship. YRI runs online, so a student in Karachi, Riyadh, Doha or Hyderabad works 1:1 with a PhD mentor every week, just like a student in California, and YRI has worked with 1,000+ students from 50+ countries.
International Fellows have qualified to represent their country at Regeneron ISEF, been accepted at IEEE EMBC, and presented papers at conferences in cities from Tokyo to Riga. This guide explains how the YRI Fellowship works from abroad, what international Fellows have achieved, what it costs and how to apply.
New to YRI? Start with What Is YRI?, then read about the Research Fellowship.
Can international students join the YRI Fellowship?
Yes. The YRI Fellowship is an online program, and it is open to curious students wherever they live. There is no travel, no visa and no summer housing to arrange. Everything happens between the student, their mentor and the YRI team.
The program is the same for every Fellow:
- 10 weeks of research, with unlimited 1:1 sessions with a PhD mentor every week
- 5 to 8 hours a week, including the weekly 1:1, set around school
- An editing team that works on every draft until the paper is ready
- A publishing team that submits the paper to journals and conferences such as IEEE, Springer and Elsevier
- Science fair preparation for ISEF, JSHS and regional fairs
- A letter of recommendation from the PhD mentor
- Free help until the paper is published, even after week 10
No research experience is needed, and your child does not need a research idea before applying. The mentor helps them find the question.
How YRI works online
A PhD mentor matched to your field
YRI works with 1,000+ PhD mentors and matches each student with a mentor in their area of interest, from AI and medicine to physics, chemistry, economics and psychology. Read how YRI mentor matching works for the details.
Weekly sessions around your school schedule
Sessions are scheduled around the student's availability. That matters for international families, whose school calendars, exam seasons and holidays rarely match the US calendar. Parents receive a summary after each weekly 1:1, so you can follow progress from anywhere.
A paper that travels
The papers go to international venues. IEEE, Springer and Elsevier publish research from every part of the world, and a published paper can be looked up by anyone, including admissions officers in the US, UK or anywhere else. The Published Work page links each paper to the publisher's own index, such as IEEE Xplore.
International YRI Fellows and what they achieved
These are Fellows whose country or city is stated in their Student Stories. Each one started with no published research.
Pakistan: Mubashir Suhail, Karachi
Mubashir was a high school student in Karachi who loved physics and computer science but had no research experience. Gravitational-wave machine learning normally needs $50,000 or more per year in computing power. He trained a lightweight neural network on detector data using free Google Colab, then built a system that lets 100 standard laptops match a single NVIDIA V100 GPU.
He won Best of Subject Category at the National Science and Engineering Fair Pakistan 2025 and qualified to represent Pakistan at Regeneron ISEF 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. Read Mubashir's story.
Qatar: Suriya Dev Saravanakumar, Doha College
Suriya was a 9th grader at Doha College with no research or science fair experience. He built a machine learning model that studies eye movements to detect Alzheimer's disease. The paper was accepted at IEEE EMBC 2026 in Toronto, the world's top biomedical engineering conference, as a 9th grader from Qatar. Read Suriya's story.
Saudi Arabia: Mohammed Alnuwaiser, Riyadh
Mohammed was an 11th grader in Riyadh who wanted to use AI to solve hard problems. Language models are starting to plan missions for teams of drones, and one bad plan can spread across the whole fleet. He studied where safety checks should sit in that planning process and what they cost in computing power. His first-author paper was accepted at an IEEE conference. Read Mohammed's story.
Egypt: Tarek Osama, Sharkya STEM School
Tarek had big ideas in biology but no way to turn them into research. Salty soil is one of the biggest threats to rice, the staple food for more than half the world. He built OryzaGen, a pipeline that combines gene data with machine learning and found 28 strong candidate genes linked to salt tolerance, a shortlist that can help breeders grow hardier rice. His first-author paper was accepted at an IEEE conference. Read Tarek's story.
India: Fellows across the country
Many of the Fellows in the Student Stories come from India. A few examples:
| Fellow | City or school | What they researched | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abhigna Naik | Chirec International School, Hyderabad | ArogyaScan, a low-cost AI screening tool for rural clinics | IEEE conference acceptance, above 98% accuracy on lung screening |
| Amaay Gupta | Jodhamal Public School, Jammu | A drone that picks its own safe emergency landing | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Arjun Vinayaka Doss | National Academy for Learning, Bangalore | AI-designed heat shields for spacecraft | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Nishanth Alampally | Delhi Public School Bangalore North | Finding a hidden flaw in physics-informed AI | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Manomay Jain | Modern School, Barakhamba Road, Delhi | Making AI reliable on a classic hard math problem | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Karan Aggarwal | Delhi Public School, Chandigarh | How sudden world events move India's stock market | Full paper accepted at the World Finance & Banking Symposium 2026 in Riga, Latvia |
| Naitik Gupta | MM Public School, Ghaziabad | AI that picks materials to clean heavy metals from water | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Khyati Swain | MVN Aravali Hills, Faridabad | AI that predicts immune reactions to heart implants | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Ariham Jain | Apeejay School International, New Delhi | Turning everyday vibrations into electricity | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Devansh Deka | Delhi Public School, Guwahati | Estimating blood sugar without a needle | IEEE conference acceptance |
| Yuvan Ghanta | Hyderabad | Whether two nearby pulsars explain a cosmic-ray mystery | IEEE conference acceptance |
Other Fellows have won recognition inside India too. Ansh Kumar, who joined as a 9th grader, was published at MIT URTC and nominated for the Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, India's highest honour for young achievers. Aarush Mahajan represented India at the Project Green Challenge 2025 Final Summit in San Francisco and placed 3rd globally, selected as 1 of 14 finalists from more than 8,000 participants.
Research that starts from home
International Fellows often do their strongest work on problems they see around them. A mentor helps turn a local question into research that matters anywhere.
- Sai Tarekar designed a system to clean the Yamuna River in Delhi, where the stretch he studied receives roughly 3,491 million liters of sewage a day. He started with zero coding experience and was accepted at IEEE ICSCSS 2026.
- Abhigna Naik started from the fact that over 65% of India's population lacks timely access to diagnostic imaging, and built a screening system that community health workers can run offline.
- Karan Aggarwal studied how two geopolitical events moved Indian aviation stocks against the wider market, using a method usually taught in graduate economics.
- Mubashir Suhail worked around the cost of computing power by building tools that run on free and ordinary hardware.
A question rooted in your own city or country is often more original than a copy of a famous project.
Presenting at conferences around the world
YRI Fellows have presented or been accepted at conferences in many countries:
- Tokyo, Japan: Aditya Singla won Best Oral Presentation at IEEE AAIML 2026
- Riga, Latvia: Karan Aggarwal's full paper at the World Finance & Banking Symposium 2026
- Glasgow, UK: Elliot Wong's paper at BioMRH 2026, with proceedings in Springer
- Merida, Mexico: Ashwajit Warwatkar's talk at BICA 2026, published in Springer
- Toronto, Canada: Suriya Dev's acceptance at IEEE EMBC 2026
- Greece: Arham Sethi's acceptance at IEEE CIBCB 2026
- Sydney, Australia: Atharv Ved's acceptance at IEEE ISASF 2026
- Washington DC, Italy and Spain: Aaryan Senthilvanan's three papers at ISMB, ACM-BCB and IWBBIO
The paper itself is the credential, and it stays on the record wherever your child applies.
Science fairs from outside the US
The road to Regeneron ISEF runs through national and regional fairs in many countries. Mubashir reached ISEF through the National Science and Engineering Fair Pakistan. In India, two YRI Fellows, Aditya K. and Thashwin S., were national finalists at the IRIS National Fair, India's route to Regeneron ISEF.
YRI includes ISEF, JSHS and regional fair preparation, with judge questions rehearsed, and 73% of Fellows place at competitions. For more, see our guides on how to win the IRIS National Fair and how to qualify for ISEF.
Applying to US universities from abroad
For international students aiming at selective US universities, a published paper gives the application something an admissions officer can check. YRI Fellows have been admitted to Brown, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Caltech and Harvard.
A publication does not guarantee an admission, and no honest program will tell you it does. What it gives your child is proof they can do the work, and a story they can tell in an essay or an interview. For families aiming at the Ivy League, the Top 1% Profile builds the whole application: 2 to 3 published papers in one field, a patent with your child's name on it, a company or nonprofit, and the full competition season, with the founder working with your family personally. It runs 6 to 9 months and takes 8 families a year.
See also how research papers help with Ivy League admissions and our wider guide to research programs for international students.
What the YRI Fellowship costs for international families
Tuition is listed in US dollars:
- Research Fellowship: $2,997, or 3 monthly payments of $999
- Top 1% Profile: $9,997, or 3 monthly payments of $3,333
The Fellowship price includes everything: unlimited 1:1 mentor sessions, editing, submission, a mentor letter of recommendation and free help until the paper is published. There are no hidden fees.
Applying is free, and money only comes up after your child is accepted. Scholarships are decided case by case, so if the cost is a concern, tell us. See Tuition for the full breakdown.
How to apply from outside the US
Admissions are rolling, so you can start when the timing suits your school year. Our guide to applying to YRI covers what to prepare.
Not ready to apply? Try the free competition
The YRI Global Research Proposal Competition 2027 is open to high school students worldwide and free to enter. Students submit a research proposal of up to 1,000 words in English by January 10, 2027. First place wins a full YRI Fellowship scholarship valued at $2,997.
Research mentorship without borders
Where a student lives no longer decides whether they can publish. Fellows in Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and across India have worked 1:1 with PhD mentors online, published first-author papers and competed on the world stage. The YRI Fellowship brings the same mentor, editing team and publishing team to every Fellow, with free help until the paper is published.
See the YRI Fellowship and apply in 10 minutes
Sources
- What Is YRI?: 1,000+ students from 50+ countries, admissions results
- The Research Fellowship: online program, steps, time per week
- Tuition: prices in US dollars, payment plans, scholarships
- Student Stories: countries, cities, schools and results for each Fellow named above
- Published Work: papers, venues and competition results
- The Top 1% Profile: program details
- YRI Global Research Proposal Competition 2027: eligibility and deadline
