Academic Sleep Pulmonary Integrated Research/Clinical Fellowship

The ATS ASPIRE Fellowship supports the development of the next generation of pulmonary and sleep physician–scientists and leaders by providing supplemental funding during an individual’s pulmonary, critical care, sleep, anesthesia, or otorhinolaryngology fellowship. It does not provide salary support.

Fellows benefit from dedicated guidance and mentorship of the ASPIRE executive council, composed of distinguished leaders in the pulmonary and sleep medicine fields. Throughout the fellowship, fellows present their research during monthly webinars, receive feedback and guidance on grant submissions, and build meaningful professional connections within a vibrant community of sleep and pulmonary researchers. View recordings of past webinars.

Funding levels vary by fellowship year:

$10,000 for research years, defined as seven or more months of protected research time.
- Funds may be used for conferences, courses, or research activities.
$5,000 for combined clinical/research years, defined as four to six months of protected research time.
- Funds may be used for conferences, courses, or research activities.
$3,000 for clinical years, defined as less than four months of protected research time.
- Funds may be used to support attendance at an educational conference.

Individuals may renew their ASPIRE participation annually for the duration of their pulmonary, critical care, sleep, anesthesia, or otorhinolaryngology fellowship.

Eligibility

Applicants should be committed to becoming leaders in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine research.

In addition, applicants must:

Be an active ATS member
Be enrolled in a pulmonary, critical care, sleep, anesthesia or otorhinolaryngology fellowship program
Be an MD, DO, or MD/PhD
Have guaranteed protected research time from their institution and/or via a T32, F32, R01 or international equivalent grant

Timeline

Review the key dates and deadlines for the upcoming cycle below to support your planning and ensure a smooth application process.

Application Opens	January 12, 2026
Application Closes	March 12, 2026
Awardee Notification	April 2026

Application Components

ATS membership ID
Key details regarding current clinical fellowship status
Funding source for research years (e.g. T32, R01, etc.)
Curriculum Vitae
Letter of support from the applicant’s mentor
- The letter should specifically describe the plan for the applicant’s research year, including the source of funding and the amount of protected time for research. ASPIRE fellowships do not provide salary support.
Applicant statement describing research goals (no more than two pages)

Applications that do not follow the stated guidelines will not be reviewed. ATS cannot accept changes or additions to applications once they have been submitted.

Questions?

For technical, application or reporting questions, contact ATS staff.

For programmatic questions, contact ASPIRE chair Dr. Richard Schwab.

Review Process

Administrative Review

ATS staff conduct a preliminary review to verify applications are complete and comply with all stated requirements. Incomplete or noncompliant applications may not move to the scientific review stage.

ATS cannot accept changes or additions to applications once they have been submitted.

Scientific Review

The ATS ASPIRE executive council is composed of distinguished leaders in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. Each year, the committee leads a rigorous review process to identify the most promising cohort of fellows.

Reviewers evaluate applicants on several key factors, including career and educational background, current clinical status, and research interests and experience. They also consider the applicant’s productivity, the strength of their institutional research environment and mentorship, and the availability of protected research time during fellowship.

ATS ASPIRE Executive Council

Indu Ayappa, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Atul Malhotra, MD, University of California, San Diego

Sanjay Patel, MD, MS, University of Pittsburgh

Susheel Patil, MD, Case Western Reserve University

David M. Rapoport, MD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Susan Redline, MD, MPH, Harvard University

Kristie Ross, MD, Case Western Reserve University

Richard Schwab, MD (chair), University of Pennsylvania

Patrick Strollo, MD, University of Pittsburgh

2025 ASPIRE Fellows

Ofure Akhiwu, MD, MPH is a second-year Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellow at Yale University with a strong academic foundation in psychology, internal medicine, and public health. She earned a BA in Psychology from Canisius College, followed by both an MD and MPH from Tulane University School of Medicine. She completed an internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where she developed a focused interest in the intersection of behavioral health, sleep, and addiction medicine. Her current research investigates sex differences in sleep quality and disturbances among individuals with opioid use disorder. Specifically, she is exploring how discrepancies between self-reported and objectively measured sleep affect psychiatric comorbidities and influence retention in medication for opioid use disorder programs. This work is grounded in a broader commitment to advancing health equity through a sleep health lens and is supported by the mentorship of Dr. Klar Yaggi and Dr. Nancy Redeker.

Jin Hyeuk (Justin) Choi, MD was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the United States at an early age. He was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, IL and Orange County, CA. He earned his BS in Physiological Science from UCLA, followed by his MD from Northwestern University. He then completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Southern California, where he also served as chief resident. He is currently a Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellow at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Choi's research focuses on improving the diagnosis and treatment of sleep-disordered breathing in hospitalized patients. Under the mentorship of Drs. Jonathan Jun and Luu Pham, he is developing and analyzing a clinical database of inpatient sleep studies to identify which patients benefit most from testing and how to optimize care transitions from the inpatient to outpatient setting. Long term, he aims to better understand how disordered sleep physiology influences clinical outcomes in patients with high-risk comorbidities such as heart failure or obstructive lung disease.

Christopher Lau, MD is a Los Angeles native whose medical journey reflects a commitment to serving diverse patient populations across varied healthcare settings. He completed his medical degree at the University of Southern California, followed by internal medicine residency at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles. He is completing his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Arizona – Phoenix and will continue his training in sleep medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Lau gained firsthand experience working within public county hospitals, integrated healthcare systems, the Veterans Affair system, and academic tertiary care medical centers. These experiences shaped his interest in improving continuity of care, especially during the transition from inpatient to outpatient settings. He became particularly focused on patients with chronic hypoventilation syndromes (CHS), who often face fragmented care and are at high risk for hospital readmissions.

Dr. Lau launched a post-hospitalization hypoventilation clinic during his fellowship and is actively developing a quality improvement project aimed at risk-stratifying patients with CHS to guide timely outpatient follow-up. His proposed clinical decision-making tool will use patient-specific factors such as diagnosis, comorbidities, and carbon dioxide retention levels to prioritize care and reduce preventable rehospitalizations. Through the support and mentorship of the ATS ASPIRE Fellowship, he aims to refine and implement his research framework and advance care delivery models that support vulnerable respiratory patients through evidence-based, equitable transition strategies.

Jeongyeon Hwang, MD is a behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He earned his medical and undergraduate degrees at Seoul National University in South Korea and completed his neurology residency at Wayne State University in Detroit. After his behavioral neurology fellowship, he will pursue additional fellowship training in sleep medicine to deepen his understanding of how sleep is interrelated to brain aging and neurodegeneration. His long-term goal is to build a career that bridges cognitive neurology and sleep medicine to better identify and treat early signs of cognitive decline.

Dr. Hwang’s research focuses on how sleep disturbances may contribute to neurodegenerative changes in older adults. He is particularly interested in identifying sleep-related physiological signals, such as slow-wave activity and slow oscillation, that could serve as early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. His work aims to develop personalized strategies that use sleep as both a risk indicator and a treatment target to slow or prevent cognitive decline in aging populations.

The ASPIRE Fellowship is administered by the American Thoracic Society with generous sponsorship from Resmed, along with additional support from Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.

ATS ASPIRE Fellowship Program

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