StrokeNet Fellowship

Each year, NIH StrokeNet provides each of its regional coordinating centers with $50,000 (salary and fringe inclusive) for a one-year fellowship that starts July 1 and ends June 30.

The intent of the StrokeNet training program is to enhance the education and career development of future stroke clinical researchers. Applicants must have an interest in clinical research and commit to participating fully in the StrokeNet Fellowship program.

The fellow must have 50% dedicated research time while he or she learns methods for clinical research and completes a clinical research project and be tied to the four academic centers of SPIRIT Regional Coordinating Center of NIH StrokeNet (Hartford Healthcare, Northwell Health, Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University (Rhode Island Hospital), and Yale School of Medicine) or corresponding performance sites. Eligible candidates include residents, fellows, post-doctoral associates, nurses, and junior faculty, from any discipline (not just limited to vascular neurology). This could include neurosurgeons, epidemiologists, physical therapists, basic scientists, and any others that have a significant interest in a career in stroke research.

If you have any questions, please contact Ruth Arnold.

SPIRIT 2027-2028 Fellowship Announcement and Application Guidelines

Martina Glavan, PhD, (Yale), is the 2026-2027 SPIRIT StrokeNet Fellow. For her project, entitled, “Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Neuronal Death and Survival Pathways in Large-animal Stroke,” Glavan hypothesizes that in acute ischemic stroke (AIS), subtype(s) of neurons within the ischemic lesion and peri-lesion can activate a conserved 'resilience program' that delays cell death. She will investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of neuronal vulnerability and resilience in a large-animal model of ischemic stroke by integrating advanced imaging, molecular profiling, and multimodal analyses to identify key mechanisms of injury and recovery within the neurovascular unit. Dr. Glavan’s work aims to uncover actionable therapeutic targets that could improve neuroprotection and functional recovery after stroke.

• Aim 1: Define the spatiotemporal molecular signatures of neuronal injury and survival following ischemia–reperfusion in a large-animal stroke model.
• Aim 2: Integrate multimodal imaging and transcriptomic data to identify key pathways driving neurovascular unit dysfunction and resilience.
• Aim 3: Prioritize candidate therapeutic targets with translational potential to improve neuroprotection and stroke recovery.

2025-2026 Fellow: Shufan Huo, MD, PhD - Yale

Findings:

• Using proteogenomic integration in 52,560 UK Biobank participants, Paralemmin-1 (PALM) was identified as a plasma protein mediating approximately 16% of the effect of APOE ε4 on intracerebral hemorrhage risk (OR 1.47, 95% CI 1.18-1.80), with additional Mendelian Randomization associations to microbleeds, and white matter hyperintensities.
• Mechanistically, PALM supports neuronal and endothelial cytoskeletal scaffolding, and its dysregulation is proposed to underlie small vessel fragility in ε4 carriers, positioning PALM-centered pathways as potential therapeutic targets.

2024-2025 Fellow: Liqi Shu, MD - Brown

• Focused on applying computational methods and machine learning to understand and improve rehabilitation outcomes in neurological disorders in three projects:

• Primary project: “Mapping Upper Extremity Kinematics to Post-stroke MRI”: Applied voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) alongside supervised machine-learning models to structural MRI and standardized motor outcome measures in 25 stroke survivors, and identified significant lesion–deficit associations in parietal regions, as well as expected correlations within the corticospinal tract.
• Secondary project: “Video-based Kinematics Analysis Framework”: Developed and validated an end-to-end pipeline that captured standardized video of functional tasks (e.g., drinking from a cup, walking), applied pose-estimation to extract kinematic features, and used a machine-learning model to produce a single clinical impairment score.
• Tertiary project: “Risk Assessment and Outcomes of Perioperative Strokes”: Generated a robust, locally validated risk-stratification tool, which confirmed perioperative stroke risk factors.

2022-2023 Fellow: Teng Peng, MD - Yale

• Focused on evaluating patients’ cerebral autoregulation, the mechanism in which the brain maintains a constant cerebral blood flow despite changes in blood pressure, after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) to determine optimal blood pressure targets, and to access how deviating from personalized autoregulation-based blood pressure targets relates to radiographic and clinical outcomes.

2021-2022 Fellow: Rachel Forman, MD - Yale

• Focused on evaluating the characteristics of stroke patients who participate in home blood pressure monitoring, as well as on identifying testing barriers to help guide future interventions.

2020-2021 Fellow: Yan Hou, MD - Hartford Health

• Focused on ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke in young adults aged 18-35.

2019-2020 Fellow: Jacqueline Geer, MD, Pulmonary Fellow - Yale

• Focused on determining whether OSA increases risk for ICH, severity, and race.

2018-2019 Fellow: Nils Petersen, MD, MSc - Yale

• Focused on the role of autoregulation-based therapies to optimize outcomes after stroke, especially around thrombectomy. Working on identifying patients who are vulnerable to blood pressure reductions during endovascular therapy via neuroimaging profile.

2018-2019 Fellow: Tracy Madsen, MD, ScM — Brown/Rhode Island

• Focused on using REGARDS and GCNKSS to investigate sex differences in stroke incidence and traditional risk factors, use of Women's Health Initiative (WHI) and Framingham Study to look at role of sex hormones in stroke risk in some men, and evaluation/management/outcomes of TIA in women and men.