AIM-AHEAD Research Fellowship Program

AIM-AHEAD Research Fellowship Program

Offers research fellowships in the United States advancing artificial intelligence applications in behavioral health, cardiometabolic disease, and cancer.

The AIM-AHEAD Research Fellowship Program is a component of the National Institutes of Health's AIM-AHEAD initiative — Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity — launched in July 2021 and funded through NIH's Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) under cooperative agreement OT2OD032581. The fellowship targets early-career researchers at AIM-AHEAD member institutions, funding applied AI and machine learning work in the three North Star III health priority areas: behavioral health, cardiometabolic disease, and cancer. In Cohort 4 (Year 4, announced January 2026), the program issued 24 fellowship awards to researchers across the United States and U.S. territories.

Fellowships are funded through Other Transactions sub-awards issued by the AIM-AHEAD Coordinating Center, not through the standard NIH grants.gov mechanism. Eligible applicants are early-career researchers affiliated with institutions that hold AIM-AHEAD membership; for-profit companies cannot apply. The program has historically prioritized researchers at Minority-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, and smaller institutions with limited existing AI/ML infrastructure, consistent with the program's health equity mission. Individual year-specific award amounts are not published on the program directory page — they appear in the applicable Research Opportunity Announcement (ROA) issued by the Coordinating Center.

Prospective fellows should monitor the AIM-AHEAD Coordinating Center's website (aim-ahead.net) for the Year 5 ROA, which had not been posted as of May 2026. Applications are submitted through the process specified in the ROA, directed to the Coordinating Center rather than NIH directly. Researchers should confirm that their institution holds AIM-AHEAD membership before applying and note that program continuity beyond July 2026 depends on the renewal status of OT2OD032581.