American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship

The American Heart Association (AHA) offers a Predoctoral Fellowship to enhance the research and clinical training of aspiring professionals in a predoctoral or clinical health degree.

At a Glance:

Annual Stipend: $28,788
Annual Health Insurance: $4,550
Annual Project Support: $2,000
Can apply for up to two years of support
Open to the array of aspiring academic and health professionals
Must be an American Heart Association Professional Member in order to apply. You should begin the membership process well ahead of the deadline. Student Memberships are $115 or you can pay $399 for Premium Professional Membership at time of submission.

Institutional signature is required prior to submission. AHA application allows for fellows to submit their application directly to the agency in the portal; however, prior to submitting the application to the agency, the student must obtain a signature from an SPO Grants Officer. Students should contact the departmental fund manager assigned to their Faculty Mentor for assistance with the application and obtaining institutional signature.

Deadlines

The AHA Predoctoral Fellowship application is subject to both internal campus and AHA deadlines. Visit the American Heart Association website for updates.

The submission requires a SPO Grants Officer signature, so this fellowship is subject to internal deadlines set by the UCSD Sponsored Projects Office (SPO). A complete and accurate Kuali Research (KR) Proposal Development (PD) record must be submitted to SPO before a Grants Officer will review, sign, and/or submit a proposal.

Proposals must be submitted for review 5 business days before the agency deadline and signatures are not guaranteed for proposals received less than 2 business days before the agency deadline. UCSD SPO business hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, weekends and holidays (e.g., Labor Day) do not count as business days.

Late proposals are not guaranteed review and/or signature. We will do our best to accommodate if feasible, however, late proposals often contain errors that take time to fix, which then result in a late submission. For more information about internal deadlines, see SPO Proposal Review and Timely Submission Policy.

AHA Predoctoral Fellowship 2025 Deadlines
Date	Deadline	What's Due
Fri, Aug 16, 2024	Internal Deadline	Student notifies mentor's research administrator (RA)/fund manager (FM) that they intend to submit an application to this opportunity. RA/FM will notify SPO about the application by creating a KR PD record.
Tue, Aug 26, 2025 by 8:00 AM Pacific Time (5 business days before agency deadline)	Internal Deadline	The student emails a pdf of the online application to the fund manager. RA/FM will route a completed KR PD record to SPO for review and signature.   SPO will review the application in accordance with SPO Proposal Review and Timely Submission Policy, provide comments, and sign the application. The student and mentor must sign before submitting the application to SPO. Letters of recommendation should be included, but are not required for internal review. The main objective for this deadline is to review application materials and obtain the institutional signature by SPO.
Wed, Sep 3, 2025 by 3:00 PM Central Time (1:00 PM Pacific Time)	Agency Deadline	The student submits the application to AHA and provides the final version (as a PDF) to the fund manager. The RA/FM submits the finalized KR PD record to SPO for approval. IMPORTANT: Students will not be able to submit their application until references have uploaded their letters to ProposalCentral.
Earliest award start date: January 1, 2025

Campus Requirements to Process AHA Application

Kuali Research (KR) Proposal Development (PD) Record

In order to have a Kuali Research (KR) Proposal Development (PD) record assigned to your application, you need to request the assistance of your mentor's fund manager to complete this record. If you do not know who this person is, consult with your mentor.
The KR PD record is used for the internal administration of the proposal, including the dissemination of COI forms.

Conflict of Interest Forms

Kuali Research Conflict of Interest (COI)
KR COI forms should be submitted prior to submission
The student, the mentor, and any co-mentors should submit COI forms
COI forms are submitted through Kuali COI, for more information, click the link above. A fund manager should assist in this process.
The American Heart Association has adopted the Public Health Service’s 2012 guidelines for conflict of interest (COI). Under the new regulations, graduate fellowships are subject to COI disclosure. Prior to submitting the AHA application, both the student applicant and the faculty sponsor must submit a COI Disclosure through Kuali COI.

How to Apply

Application Process

Submitting an American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship proposal is a multifaceted process. In addition to the AHA Application Guide link above, the following sections noted below provide additional and important information pertaining to the application process.

Accounts Needed for Submission

AHA Membership
- https://professional.heart.org/en/partners
ProposalCentral
- The American Heart Association uses an online application portal called Proposal Central from which you will prepare, submit, and track your application.
ORCID iD
- AHA requires that you link your ProposalCentral account to an ORCID iD
- NOTE: If there is not an ORCID iD linked to your application an error will be generated preventing the application from moving forward to consideration.

The Application

In ProposalCentral, search for American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship under Grant Opportunities. 

2025 AHA Research Funding Application Instructions: These application instructions will walk you through the ProposalCentral Application (see UCSD Specific Information for Application for additional guidance).

Required Application Documents: This AHA instruction guide has detailed information about all of the attachments that should be uploaded into ProposalCentral, including Third-Party Personnel documents.

Helpful Tips:

Third-Party Personnel Uploads Section: Upload in this section ONLY, the uploads will be repeated in the upload attachment section if done correctly. You should be able to upload these documents after creating an entry for each key person. These documents should also meet the formatting requirements for AHA, the only document that you do not need to meet AHA formatting requirements are biosketches.
Click the validate button to run a quick check over your materials and the system will alert you if any materials are missing. This is a very superficial review, so double-check that your attachments follow the AHA Formatting Guidelines, referenced in the AHA Research Funding Application Instructions.
Budget: There are predetermined allowable costs for this fellowship, which include, stipend, health insurance, and other project support. This fellowship excludes indirect costs. You may apply for up to two years of support.

UCSD-Specific Application Information

ProposalCentral requires an institutional signature prior to submission. The student should sign the signature page first, then email a pdf of the online application to your fund manager to include in the KR PD record before the internal deadline. The fund manager will then route the completed KR PD record to SPO by the internal deadline, notifying them that the application is ready for review. After the review, the SPO Grants Officer will sign the application and the student may submit to the agency.

Lead Institution	Select the Lead Institution “The Regents of the University of California, San Diego.” The information that populates should look like this:
Lead Institution Information	Address: 9500 Gilman Drive, Dept 0934 City: La Jolla State: CA Zip: 92093-0934 Country: United States Type of Institution: Public-Federal Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No Women-owned: No Type of Entity: State Duns Number: 80-435-5790 IRS EIN or TIN: 95-6006144 There should also be a long list of institutional contacts.
Contacts
Grants Officer	Jeniffer Lapek – Signing Official (jmlapek@ucsd.edu)
Fiscal Officer	Wella Garcia – Financial Officer (spfinance@ucsd.edu)
Technology Transfer Officer	Isma Fanani – Technology Transfer Officer (ifanani@ucsd.edu)

Letters of Reference

IMPORTANT: Each applicant must obtain three (3) letters of reference. The applicant will not be able to submit their proposal until references have been uploaded to ProposalCentral.
The applicant’s Department Head, sponsor, co-sponsor, collaborating investigator or consultant contributing to the proposal may not serve as a reference writer.
A referee is an individual familiar with the applicant’s scientific interests and abilities. As a general best practice, it is helpful to provide your referees with a copy of your application so they can tailor their recommendation for your proposal. Remember, the best recommenders are those that can speak to your abilities to carry out the proposed project.
Letters should be composed by the referent and should not originate from the applicant.

Reference Letter Submission Process

Please visit the Reference Information page for information about the referent upload process and to download a template of the Reference Report form:
https://professional.heart.org/en/research-programs/application-information/required-application-documents/reference-information