AIM-AHEAD Announces Year 4 Program Awardees and Fellows
Find out more about AIM-AHEAD Year 4 Programs and their Awardees and Fellows, along with each individual’s institutional and AIM-AHEAD Hub affiliations.
AIM-AHEAD Welcomes 130 New Trainees and Launches 2025-2026 Collaborative Training Program Cohorts
The 2025–2026 AIM-AHEAD Collaborative Training Programs are now underway with the launch of their new cohorts last month (December 2025). Applications for the four training programs were open from September 2 to November 28, 2025. During this period, AIM-AHEAD received 1,346 program applications from 775 unique applicants across all training programs, reflecting a growing interest in building expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning(AI/ML) for health research and healthcare practitioners nationwide. Following a thorough review process, a total of 130 trainees were selected and onboarded across the four programs from a highly competitive applicant pool, as indicated by the outcome figures below:
AIM-AHEAD All of Us Training Program - Cohort 3
- Total applications: 483 (incl. 162 for the new Genomics Track)
- Selected Trainees: 25
AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI AI-READI Training Program - Cohort 2
- Total applications: 241
- Selected Trainees: 25
AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI for Clinical Care Training Program - Cohort 2
- Total applications: 245
- Selected Trainees: 30
AIM-AHEAD & NCATS Training Program - Cohort 3
- Total applications: 377
- Selected Trainees: 50
Notices of Award were issued in late November, and the programs officially began in December with program orientation sessions. The AIM-AHEAD All of Us, AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI AI-READI, and AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI for Clinical Care Training Programs held a joint orientation on December 5, 2025, featuring a general AIM-AHEAD overview followed by program-specific breakout sessions. The AIM-AHEAD & NCATS Training Program was the final program kickoff of 2025, with its orientation session taking place on December 18, 2025.
Each program will run for eight months, concluding on July 31, 2026, and will offer trainees mentorship, skills training, and opportunities to engage in collaborative and multi-disciplinary AI/ML health research projects.
AIM-AHEAD All of Us Training Program (Cohort 3)
The AIM-AHEAD All of Us Training Program is intended to increase research in AI/ML by leveraging the All of Us data and infrastructure (Researcher Workbench). This training program was designed to increase research in AI/ML by training individuals from various backgrounds who are committed to gaining proficiency in AI/ML data analysis, and applying their expertise to benefit all American communities.
Program Co-Directors:
- Toufeeq Syed, MS, PhD
- Robert T. Mallet, PhD
- Legend L. Burge, III, PhD
- Jennifer Uhrig, PhD
25 Trainees from the following institutions were selected for this program:
|
AIM-AHEAD Regional Hub |
Institutions |
|
Central Hub |
University of Hawaii at Manoa |
|
North/Midwest Hub |
University of Alaska Fairbanks University of Kansas Medical Center Mayo Clinic Iowa State University University of Utah |
|
Northeast Hub |
Columbia University Medical Center Coppin State University Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Harvard University University of Pennsylvania Pitt/Carnegie Mellon MD/PhD Program University of Rochester |
|
South Central Hub |
Baylor College of Medicine Louisiana Health Science Center New Orleans |
|
Southeast-Meharry Hub |
Meharry Medical College National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Northern Illinois University Vanderbilt University Medical Center University of Virginia Virginia Commonwealth University |
|
Southeast-Morehouse Hub |
Alabama A&M University |
|
West Hub |
University of California San Francisco |
AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI AI-READI Training Program (Cohort 2)
The AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI AI-READI Training Program will increase and expand AI-READI data access through engagement and training, including use of AI/ML in analysis and a train-the-trainer model. It will allow AIM-AHEAD trainees to conduct novel research at the intersection of AI/ML and healthcare challenges with a multi-modal array of data elements from the broad range of selected cohort participants.
Program Co-Directors:
- Toufeeq Syed, PhD
- Sally Baxter, MD, MSc
- Guodong (Gordon) Gao, PhD
- Damaris Javier, PhD
25 Trainees from the following institutions were selected for this program:
|
AIM-AHEAD Regional Hub |
Institution |
|
Central Hub |
None |
|
North/Midwest Hub |
Kansas State University University of Utah |
|
Northeast Hub |
Johns Hopkins University New York University State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University Tritonis, Inc. Yale University |
|
South Central Hub |
Computational Biomedicine Lab at the University of Houston Jackson State University The University of Mississippi Texas Southern University University of Texas Health San Antonio |
|
Southeast-Meharry Hub |
Indiana University North Carolina A&T State University Northern Illinois University Vanderbilt University Medical Center |
|
Southeast-Morehouse Hub |
University of Alabama at Birmingham Savannah State University |
|
West Hub |
University of Arizona University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix University of California Los Angeles University of California San Diego University of California San Francisco University of Southern California Stanford University |
AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI for Clinical Care Training Program (Cohort 2)
The AIM-AHEAD Bridge2AI for Clinical Care Training Program will expand Bridge2AI AI/ML for Clinical Care data access through engagement, training, and mentorship, including the use of AI/ML in big data analysis for trainees from across the nation. This effort will allow AIM-AHEAD fellows to conduct novel data-driven research at the intersection of AI/ML and barriers to healthcare with a multi-modal array of data elements from a wide array of cohort participants.
Program Co-Directors:
- Toufeeq Syed, MS, PhD
- Eric S. Rosenthal, MD
- Nawar Shara, PhD
30 Trainees from the following institutions were selected for this program:
|
AIM-AHEAD Regional Hub |
Institution |
|
Central Hub |
None |
|
North/Midwest Hub |
None |
|
Northeast Hub |
Children's National Hospital Columbia University Medical Center Dartmouth College Faith Based Genetic Research Institute Independent University of Maryland College Park Yale University |
|
South Central Hub |
Baylor College of Medicine BrainCheck Inc. Houston Methodist Research Institute Ochsner Health System Rice University University of Texas at Arlington UTHealth Houston School of Public Health |
|
Southeast-Meharry Hub |
Duke University School of Nursing University of Illinois at Chicago University of Michigan The Ohio State University Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Winston-Salem State University |
|
Southeast-Morehouse Hub |
Alabama State Department of Agriculture and Industries Medical University of South Carolina |
|
West Hub |
University of Arizona University of California Berkeley University of California Los Angeles University of California San Francisco New Mexico State University Stanford Health Care |
AIM-AHEAD & NCATS Training Program (Cohort 3)
The AIM-AHEAD Consortium and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) have partnered to develop a traineeship in AI/ML using NCATS Data, the N3C Data Enclave, and AIM-AHEAD’s Data Science Training Core.
This training opportunity was designed to reduce barriers for AIM-AHEAD researchers to access and analyze real-world clinical data, enabling them to conduct novel research at the intersection of AI/ML and healthcare with data collected from a broad cross-section of American communities.
Program Co-Directors:
- Toufeeq Syed, PhD, MS
- Robert Mallet, PhD
- Aubri Hoffman, PhD, MS
- Mike Kurilla, MD, PhD
50 Trainees from the following institutions were selected for this program:
|
AIM-AHEAD Regional Hub |
Institution |
|
Central Hub |
None |
|
North/Midwest Hub |
Biorealm, LLC University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus University of Iowa University of Nebraska Medical Center University of Utah |
|
Northeast Hub |
Albert Einstein College of Medicine Boston Children's Hospital University at Buffalo Georgetown University School of Medicine Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Northeastern University Yale University |
|
South Central Hub |
Baylor College of Medicine Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso The University of Texas at Austin University of Texas at San Antonio The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston |
|
Southeast-Meharry Hub |
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Duke University Indiana University School of Dentistry University of Michigan University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Ohio State University Old Dominion University University of Virginia University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center Vanderbilt University Medical Center |
|
Southeast-Morehouse Hub |
University of Alabama at Birmingham Emory University School of Medicine University of Florida Georgia State University Medical University of South Carolina University of Miami University of Miami Miller School of Medicine University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus |
|
West Hub |
University of Arizona University of California Los Angeles University of California San Diego University of California San Francisco University of New Mexico School of Medicine |
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