American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship 2027: Two-Year Cardiovascular Research Award With a $29,364 Annual Stipend

American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship 2027: Two-Year Cardiovascular Research Award With a $29,364 Annual Stipend

The American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship is one of the most established routes for doctoral students in the United States to fund a defined block of mentored research in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and brain-health science. The 2027 competition is currently open, with a firm application deadline of Tuesday, August 4, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. Central Time. Late submissions are not accepted, so the real planning window closes well before that date.

This is not a general “any topic” graduate scholarship. It is a research-training award built around a specific project, a specific mentor, and a specific scientific field. If your doctoral work sits inside the Association’s mission — heart disease, stroke, and brain health, broadly defined — this fellowship can free you from teaching or unrelated funding obligations for one or two years while you concentrate on your research and your development as an independent scientist.

This guide explains exactly what the award pays, who fits it, how the application is judged, and how to prepare a competitive submission for this particular program rather than a generic fellowship.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Fellowship Actually Offers

The financial package is straightforward and, importantly, predictable. For each year of the award you receive:

• A stipend of $29,364, paid to support you as a full-time trainee.
• A health-insurance allowance of $4,550 per year, which helps cover the cost of coverage during your training period.
• $2,000 per year in project support, intended for research-related costs.

The Association explicitly does not pay indirect (facilities and administrative) costs on fellowships. That is a meaningful detail for your department: the money that arrives is directed at you and your project, not at institutional overhead, and any additional costs for the proposed work are expected to be absorbed by your mentor’s laboratory. Framing this clearly with your graduate program and your mentor early avoids awkward conversations later about who covers bench costs, reagents, or shared equipment.

The award runs for one or two years. Two years is the more common ask for a substantive dissertation-linked project, but you should size the request to the science you can realistically deliver and defend in your proposal. A two-year plan needs to read as two years of coherent, staged work — not a one-year project stretched to fill the calendar.

Beyond the money, an AHA fellowship carries reputational weight. It is a recognizable, peer-reviewed national award in the cardiovascular and stroke research community. Listing it on a CV signals to future postdoctoral advisers, program officers, and hiring committees that your work was judged competitive by external reviewers early in your career.

Who Should Apply

The Association designed this award for predoctoral students who are already past the coursework-heavy phase of their training and are ready to commit the bulk of their time to research. To be eligible you must be a full-time student enrolled in one of the following doctoral programs:

• MD
• DO
• DVM
• PharmD
• DDS
• DrPH
• PhD in science, nursing, public health, or an equivalent clinical health science doctoral program

You must have completed your initial coursework and be able to devote at least 80% effort to research when the award activates. That 80% threshold is not a formality — it reflects the Association’s expectation that a fellow is functioning primarily as a researcher, not splitting attention across heavy clinical rotations, full teaching loads, or unrelated employment.

On citizenship and residency, the program is broader than many federal awards. At the time you submit your proposal, you must hold one of these designations: U.S. citizen, permanent resident, pending permanent resident, or an eligible visa status — E-3, F-1, G-4, H1-B, J-1, O-1, or TN — or DACA status. This makes the fellowship accessible to many international doctoral students studying in the United States who would be shut out of NIH NRSA F31 awards, which are restricted to citizens and permanent residents. If you are an international student on one of these visas, the AHA route is worth serious attention precisely because the eligibility door is open.

You also need to be an American Heart Association Professional Member at the time of submission. Build that step into your timeline; do not leave it to the final week.

The Central Role of Your Mentor

This is a mentored fellowship, and the reviewers will weigh your mentor and training environment heavily. The Association expects your mentor to be an established investigator with current research funding, a documented track record, and genuine familiarity with your career goals. In practice, that means a supervisor who can point to their own active grants, a history of training students who went on to research careers, and a concrete plan for how they will develop you.

Because the fellowship does not pay indirect costs and caps project support at $2,000 per year, the Association also expects that additional monetary support for the proposed work will come from the mentor’s laboratory. Your mentor is therefore not just a signatory — they are a financial and scientific partner in the application. Choose a project that fits work their lab is already resourced to do, and make sure they are fully committed before you invest weeks in the proposal.

A strong mentoring plan describes specific, scheduled interactions: how often you will meet, what milestones will be reviewed, how you will be introduced to the wider field through conferences and collaborations, and how your independence will grow across the award period. Vague statements that a mentor “will provide guidance as needed” read as boilerplate. Reviewers want to see a deliberate training structure.

Application Materials and Process

Applications are submitted electronically through ProposalCentral, the Association’s grants platform. The core components you should expect to prepare include:

• A research proposal limited to 5 pages. This is the heart of the application and where most competitive separation happens.
• Three reference letters, which speak to your ability, promise, and fit for a research career.
• Your mentor’s materials, documenting their funding, track record, and training plan.
• Confirmation of your AHA Professional Membership.
• Institutional and eligibility documentation as required by ProposalCentral.

Five pages is not much room. Every paragraph has to earn its place: a clear statement of the problem and its significance to cardiovascular or brain health, a focused hypothesis, a specific-aims structure, a credible methodological approach, attention to rigor and feasibility, and a realistic timeline that matches your one- or two-year request. Preliminary data, where you have it, strengthens feasibility — but a well-reasoned approach with clear controls and contingency plans can carry a proposal even where preliminary data is thin.

Timeline and Deadline Strategy

The single date that governs everything is August 4, 2026, 3:00 p.m. Central Time. Work backward from it:

• Now through late spring 2026: confirm your project and mentor, and secure your mentor’s commitment in writing. Draft your specific aims.
• Roughly 8 weeks out (early June 2026): send a near-final proposal to your mentor and ask your three referees, giving them a clear brief and your CV.
• Roughly 4 weeks out (early July 2026): finalize the science, complete your ProposalCentral profile, confirm your AHA Professional Membership, and start the institutional sign-off process, which almost always takes longer than students expect.
• Final week: upload everything, confirm all three reference letters are in, and submit at least a day early. A 3:00 p.m. Central deadline is unforgiving, and portals slow down under last-day load.

Because the Association does not accept late submissions, treat the campus or sponsored-programs internal deadline — not the AHA deadline — as your true target. Many institutions require a research office review several business days before the sponsor deadline.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Underestimating the mentor requirement. A thin mentor plan or an adviser without current funding weakens an otherwise strong application. Address funding and training explicitly.
• Requesting two years for a one-year project. Match the duration to a genuinely staged plan with milestones for each year.
• Ignoring the 80% effort rule. If clinical or teaching obligations will realistically prevent 80% research effort at activation, resolve that before applying.
• Leaving membership and portal setup to the end. Professional Membership and ProposalCentral registration are easy to complete early and painful to rush.
• Writing a generic biomedical proposal. The work must connect clearly to the Association’s mission in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, or brain-health science. Make that link explicit, not implied.
• Overlooking reference-letter logistics. Three letters means three people who each need lead time, a brief, and a reminder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this only for U.S. citizens? No. Eligible applicants include U.S. citizens, permanent residents, pending permanent residents, and holders of E-3, F-1, G-4, H1-B, J-1, O-1, or TN visas, as well as DACA recipients, as of the submission date. This broader eligibility is a key advantage over some federal predoctoral awards.

How much is the total award? Each year provides a $29,364 stipend, a $4,550 health-insurance allowance, and $2,000 in project support. The award can run for one or two years, so a two-year fellowship totals roughly $71,828 across the two components of stipend and allowances plus project support.

Does the Association pay my department’s overhead? No. Indirect costs are not paid on fellowships. Additional support for the research itself is expected to come from your mentor’s laboratory.

What fields qualify? Research relevant to cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and brain health — spanning basic, clinical, translational, population, and behavioral science that advances the Association’s mission.

Do I need to be an AHA member before I apply? Yes. You must be an American Heart Association Professional Member at the time of submission.

Where do I submit? All applications go through ProposalCentral. Confirm your institution’s internal review deadline, which precedes the sponsor deadline.

Next Steps

If your doctoral research fits the Association’s mission and you have a funded, committed mentor, this fellowship is worth building your summer around. Start by reading the full program page and the current program description on ProposalCentral, confirm your eligibility and membership, and lock in your mentor’s support in writing. Then give yourself — and your three referees — enough runway to submit comfortably ahead of the August 4, 2026 deadline.

Verify all figures, eligibility details, and dates against the official American Heart Association program page before you finalize your application, because peer-review programs update their terms between cycles.

Official program page: https://professional.heart.org/en/research-programs/aha-funding-opportunities/predoctoral-fellowship