General Information
The Pauley Heart Center’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship program is an immersive cardiovascular research program at VCU's medical campus in Richmond, Virginia. Launched in the summer of 2020, the program provides a mentored, hands-on research experience to motivated undergraduates pursuing majors in STEM or health professions. Fellows are matched with a VCU faculty mentor and complete a ten-week internship at VCU's medical campus in downtown Richmond, culminating in a final research presentation. All fellows are provided with housing in VCU’s dorms and receive a stipend; stipends and specific program requirements vary depending on a student’s specific fellowship type.
The purpose of this fellowship is to provide undergraduate students with an introduction to clinical and translational multi-disciplinary cardiovascular research. By the end of the program, students will have developed research skills through experiential learning, and will be able to apply this experience to future research opportunities and/or post-graduate careers in cardiovascular research.
Program History
2020: With support from the American Heart Association and the College of William & Mary, the Pauley Heart Center launched two undergraduate summer research fellowships. The first fellowship (referred to as our AHA program) was funded via a grant from the AHA and included five students from universities across Virginia. The second fellowship, the Research Experience in All-Around Cardiac Health (referred to as our REACH program), was launched with funding from the College of William & Mary as well as private donors and included six William & Mary students. Due the COVID-19 pandemic, our first group of fellows completed their fellowship virtually. Read about our inaugural fellowship cohort!
Virtual poster presentations in 2020
2021: In addition to continuing our AHA and REACH fellowship programs for second year, we also expanded to include a new fellowship in a strategic partnership with Christopher Newport University (referred to as the CNU program) resulting in the addition of two students from CNU. Notably, applications for our AHA and REACH programs increased significantly in our second year (with applications for the AHA nearly doubling in number), emphasizing the impact and growing popularity of these programs. In addition to our 14 new fellows in summer 2021, we also had six of our summer 2020 students return to continue their research, for a total of 20 students in 2021. This year's fellowship was once again held virtually. Read more about our 2021 fellows.
Virtual poster presentations in 2021
2022: With support from a National Institutes of Health R25 grant awarded in January 2022, we were equipped to successfully launch a fourth program (referred to as our R25 fellowship) which engages six universities across Virginia to recruit students from underrepresented minorities and disadvantaged backgrounds. The addition of this program precipitated our largest cohort yet (22 students including 2 returning students from summer 2021). Also of note, summer 2022 was our first summer fellowship to be held in person on VCU’s medical campus, allowing fellows to rotate through clinical areas across the medical campus. Read more about our 2022 fellows.
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2022 Fellows
2023: Embarking on our fourth year of our fellowship programs and our second year held in-person, 2023 brought with it further growth and we welcomed a cohort of 29 students from six universities.
2023 Fellows
2024: This year marked the fifth year of our fellowship programs! We welcomed a cohort of 28 students from seven universities.
Since 2020, our fellowship programs have welcomed over 90 students from11 universities who have engaged with 30+ faculty mentors across 20+ departments and specialties across VCU. You can read more about our fellows' accomplishments here and browse sample faculty projects here.