Postdoctoral Fellowships

Funding Agency:
American Heart Association

To enhance the training of postdoctoral applicants who are not yet independent. The applicant must be embedded in an appropriate investigative group with the mentorship, support, and relevant scientific guidance of a research mentor. Recognizing the unique challenges that clinicians, in particular, experience in balancing research and clinical activity, this award mechanism aims to be as flexible as possible to enable applicants to develop academic careers in research alongside fulfilling clinical service commitments.

  • The trainee and mentor should collaboratively provide a thoughtfully planned, systematic proposal aimed at clearly answering an investigative question in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular or brain health research. (5-page limit). A fellow must have primary responsibility for the writing and the preparation of the application, understanding the mentor will play a significant part in providing guidance to the applicant. Because the fellow receives only a stipend from the award, additional monetary support for the proposed work MUST come from the mentor's laboratory. Therefore, the proposal will likely be related to the mentor's currently funded work. The mentor should clarify the role the applicant played in developing the proposal, the relationship of the proposal to ongoing work in the mentor's laboratory, and how the proposal will contribute toward the training and career development of the applicant.
  • A new fellow may not have had adequate time to generate preliminary data; therefore, applicants may present preliminary data generated by the mentor. The assessment of preliminary data, whether generated by the mentor or the applicant, should be put into perspective so that bold new ideas and risk taking by beginning investigators are encouraged rather than stymied. Submission of an application to the AHA with identical or significantly similar content as a submission by another investigator is prohibited. Also, the submission of an application to the AHA with identical or significantly similar content from a mentor to a grant program and his/her fellow to a fellowship program is prohibited. In such cases, both applications may be removed from funding consideration. If a grant application is submitted by the mentor of a fellowship application, both applications may be funded if there is no duplication of aims.

Deadlines: Sep. 7, 2023

Agency Website

https://professional.heart.org/en/research-programs/application-information/post…

Eligibility Requirements

  • At the time of award activation, the applicant must hold a post-baccalaureate PhD degree or equivalent, or a doctoral-level clinical degree such as MD, DO, DVM, PharMD, DDS, DPh, or PhD in nursing, public health or other clinical health science.
  • At the time of award activation, the awardee may not be pursuing a doctoral degree.
  • At the time of award activation, the applicant may have no more than five years of research training or experience since obtaining a post-baccalaureate doctoral-level degree (excluding clinical training).
  • The awardee will be expected to devote at least 80 percent of full-time work either to research or to activities pursuant to independent research (instead of administrative, clinical duties that are not an integral part of the research training program, or teaching responsibilities).
  • This award is not intended for individuals of faculty rank.
  • Exceptions:
    • MD or MD/PhD with clinical responsibilities who needs instructor or similar title to see patients, but who will devote at least 80% full-time to research training.
    • R.N./PhD with a clinical appointment. The awardee will be expected to devote his/her time to research or activities directly related to the development into an independent researcher. All other eligibility criteria apply.
  • An applicant may submit only one AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship application per deadline.

Amount Description

Annual Stipend - Will match the latest published NIH sliding scale for postdoctoral fellows at the time the AHA begins to accept RFAs (July 1, 2022)

Funding Type

Fellowship

Eligibility

Medical Fellow/Resident
Post Doctoral Fellows

Category

Engineering and Physical Sciences
Environmental & Life Sciences
Medical
Medical - Basic Science
Medical - Clinical Science
Medical - Translational
Social Sciences

External Deadline

September 7, 2023