(top L-R) Abhijit Banerjee, Dr.Ashish Kumar Jha (bottom L-R) Eboo Patel, Premal Shah. /

The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced its annual list of Great Immigrants,which recognizes 24 naturalized citizens whose contributions have enriched American society and strengthened its democracy. 

The 2024 list includes four Indian Americans namely Abhijit Banerjee, Eboo Patel, Premal Shah and Dr. Ashish Kumar Jha. 

A nobel laureate, Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2019 he shared the Nobel Prize in Economics with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”

In 2003 Benerjee founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan and remains one of the directors of the lab. He was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D in 1988.

Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith America, the leading interfaith organization in the United States. The organization has collaborated with governments, universities, private companies, and civic organizations to transform faith into a bridge of cooperation, rather than a barrier of division, under his leadership.

Mumbai-born Patel also served on  President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council and has been named “one of America’s best leaders” by U.S. News and World Report. . He is an Ashoka Fellow and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.

Social entrepreneur, Shah leads Kiva.org, a website that allows you to lend $25 to the working poor. With an impressive 98 percent repayment rate, Kiva lenders have provided funding to more than 1 million low-income entrepreneurs across 75 countries since 2005. The site has been named as one of Oprah's Favorite Things and a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine. 

A former PayPal executive, Shah was named on FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40″ list for his work with Kiva. He is a graduate of Stanford University.

A globally recognized physician, Jha serves as dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health. For his expertise on pandemic preparedness and response,he was appointed White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator in March 2022, by President Joe Biden who described him as “one of the leading public health experts in America.” 

Before joining the Brown School of Public Health, Jha was a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He was the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute from 2014 until 2020 and has held other various leadership roles at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research articles have consistently been ranked in the top 1 percent of most cited researchers.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has sponsored Great Immigrants, Great Americans, a public awareness campaign that celebrates immigrants’ vital role in American life, every Fourth of July since 2006.

“The 24 Americans honored today serve as a reminder of the economic and societal benefits that each new generation of immigrants brings to our country and the richness of talent, skills, and achievements they contribute to our democracy,” said Dame Louise Richardson, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and a naturalized American citizen.