Our NHLBI-funded StARR program is designed to support residents interested in clinical or translational research to improve prevention, detection, or management of cardiovascular, pulmonary, or hematologic health conditions.
Research, Mentorship and Training
Research and mentorship
The StARR program supports a broad range of clinical and translational research, including early translational research involving human tissues, clinical epidemiology and interventional studies, population science research, and implementation or dissemination research designed to translate scientific discoveries into real-world settings.
Residents work with the StARR program directors to identify an appropriate portfolio of research relevant to their research and career goals, with an emphasis on scientific rigor and innovation, clinical or public health relevance, and feasibility within the context of residency.
Prior to the StARR year, residents identify a primary research mentor and associate project mentor with the guidance of the StARR program directors. More than 50 senior and mid-level faculty have already expressed interest in serving as mentors for StARR residents, but other faculty mentors may be identified with the help of the program directors.
Training experiences
The StARR program supports rigorous methodological training to enable residents to design and carry out high-impact research studies, compete successfully for future research support, and launch future successful careers as clinician investigators.
Residents who are pursuing clinical, outcomes, or implementation research are strongly encouraged to pursue structured training during their StARR year, such as the one-year Advanced Training in Clinical Research program (or the "TICR Suite" of coursework) or the Implementation Science certificate program.
Residents who already have substantive methodologic training should work with the StARR program directors to identify more selective training experiences appropriate to their research and career goals.
Tuition for coursework is generally covered by the StARR program, although cost-sharing from trainees' departments or from trainees may be requested if tuition levels exceed budgeted amounts.
StARR scholars also take part in multidisciplinary career development workshops to improve their scientific writing skills, foster their ability to work effectively within research teams, prepare them to give effective research presentations and foster their grant-writing skills.
StARR Support and Benefits
The StARR program covers 80% of residents' salaries during their StARR year and provides funds to support didactic training in research. The other 20% of residents' salaries, as well as all of their benefits, are covered by their residency programs or departments.
Resident scholars also have access to additional research support funds, travel/conference funds, workspace in UCSF Mission Hall and support from statisticians in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics.
Successful StARR graduates are also eligible to apply for new Transitions from StARR K38 grants from the NHLBI that can provide future salary and research support after completion of StARR. Graduates can carry these NIH funds on to other institutions, if desired.
Timing of StARR support
Residents may pursue StARR at different times in their postdoctorate training depending on their clinical background. For example:
- Pediatrics: Residents can pursue StARR either through an additional (PGY4) year of training (via the "extended residency" StARR pathway) or by substituting a StARR year (via the short-track StARR pathway) for the usual PGY3 year.
- Medicine: Residents can pursue StARR through an additional (PGY4) year of training.
- Clinical Pathology/Laboratory Medicine: Residents may pursue StARR after completing two years of clinical residency training.
- Anesthesia: Residents may pursue StARR during either their PGY4 or PGY5 year as part of the residency's Research Scholars Track.
- General Surgery: Residents may pursue StARR during one of their two dedicated research years (usually after their PGY3 year).
Eligibility and Selection
To be eligible for the UCSF StARR program, residents should:
- Be currently enrolled in a UCSF residency (Non-UCSF residents are not eligible to join the UCSF StARR program.)
- Be a US citizen or a permanent US resident
- Show evidence of interest in clinical or translational research (specific prior research experience in cardiovascular, pulmonary or hematologic health is desirable but not required.)
- Have a strong interest in conducting research related to an aspect of cardiovascular, pulmonary or hematologic conditions
- Belong to a residency program or department that will co-sponsor their participation, including 20% salary and all benefits during the StARR year
Of note, the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, Anesthesia, Surgery, Laboratory Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and Obstetrics & Gynecology have already confirmed co-support of their residents selected for StARR.
Scholar selection process
Scholar selection is designed to identify the most promising candidates as well as guide candidates in identifying mentors and developing preliminary research plans before the start of the StARR year. This approach ensures that residents begin the StARR program with at least one committed research mentor and a preliminary research plan already in place.
Residents are encouraged to contact co-Program Director Dr. Alison Huang for a preliminary informal consultation prior to submitting an application. Following this, promising candidates will pursue a two-stage application process:
Stage 1
During stage 1, by the summer or fall before the proposed StARR year (i.e., summer of 2023 for a residents seeking to join StARR in the summer of 2024), applicants submit:
- A one-page cover letter describing their clinical and research background, any prior research training, and current or future research interests
- A resume or curriculum vitae emphasizing any past research training, experience, or products
- A brief statement of eligibility/support from the applicant’s residency director (see template)
Preferred format is PDF.
Stage 2
Following review of materials from stage 1, promising applicants will be guided in preparing additional materials by the spring before the start of the StARR year, to ensure they have viable StARR research and training plans.
An online form will be sent to applicants to complete and attach required documents. All documents must be in PDF format. These include:
- A letter of support from the proposed primary research mentor confirming interest in and ability to mentor the resident. If an additional secondary mentor or co-mentor has been identified, the applicant should include a brief letter from the co-mentor as well.
- A 2-3-page research proposal synopsis describing the objectives, methods and expected outcomes of a proposed project (with input from the primary mentor)
- An NIH-style biosketch summarizing education/training, research goals and any past contributions to science or research support
- A brief training plan, describing any methodological or career development activities that the resident proposed to pursue during the StARR year
Before appointments are confirmed, stage 2 applications are reviewed by the Program Directors and Steering/Advisory Committee, who consider the qualifications of the resident, the experience or resources of the mentor, and the appropriateness of the research plan.
Residents from internal medicine or pediatrics seeking to pursue StARR via the short-track pathway are strongly encouraged to make preliminary inquiries by the end of internship, to ensure that they can pursue a program of clinical care and research that will lead to board eligibility.
StARR Cohorts
2024-2025
| Name | Department | Project Title |
| Nyasha Chagwedera, MD, PhD | Adult Psychiatry | Assessing the Feasibility and Acceptability of the Reduction of Ultra-Processed Foods from the Diets of a Subset of Patients with Depression and High Cardiac Disease Risk - A Pilot Open-Label Crossover Trial |
| Axel Gomez Casarez, MD | General Surgery | Application of a Patient Specific Biomechanical Model for Enhanced Prediction of Behavior and Outcomes of Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms |
| Jessica Santos-Parker, MD, MS, PhD | Surgery | Disparities in Lung Cancer Screening |
| Gerald Tiu, MD, PhD | Pediatrics | Effect of Donor Clonal Hematopoiesis on Pediatric Transplant Alloimmunity and Outcome |
2023-2024
| Name | Department | Project Title |
| Joanna Balcerek, MD, PhD | Laboratory Medicine | Exploring the Regulatory T Cell Niche in Adipose Tissue During Obesity |
| Joel Ramirez, MD | Vascular and Endovascular Surgery | Mapping Immune Cell Expression Patterns in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms with Spatial Single Cell Sequencing |
2022-2023
| Name | Department | Project Title |
| Matt Murrill, MD, PhD | Pulmonary and Critical Care | Multi-Faceted Intervention to Improve the Latent Tuberculosis Care Cascade of non-US born Asians in California: A Quasi-Experimental Study |
2021-2022
| Name | Department | Project Title |
| David Dillon, MD, MPH, PhD | Emergency Medicine | Opioid-Associated Cardiac Arrest: Epidemiology and Identification |
| Ayca Erkin-Cakmak, MD, MPH | Pediatrics | The Interplay Between Iron Load and Endocrinopathies in Patients with Thalassemia |
| Andrew Levine, MD, PhD | Hematopathology | Elucidating Ribosome Function in Acute Myeloid Leukemia with Mutated NPM1 |
| Katherine Sanders, MD | Surgery | Cost Effectiveness of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair in Vulnerable Populations |
2020-2021
| Name | Department | Project Title |
| Mark Barry, MD | General Surgery | Mitigating vascular dysfunction and lung injury in trauma with human blood products in a murine model of trauma/hemorrhagic shock |
| Greg Goldgof, MD, PhD, MS | Clinical Pathology / Laboratory Medicine | Deep learning for real-time cell classification in clinical bone marrow aspirates |
| James Salazar, MD, MAS | Internal Medicine | Postmortem systematic investigation of sudden inpatient death attributable to cardiac arrest |
| Sam Schnittman, MD | Internal Medicine | Immunologic predictors of myocardial infarction in people with HIV |
2019-2020
| Name | Department | Project Title |
| Sagar Bapat, MD, PhD | Laboratory Medicine | Elucidating the role of nuclear hormone receptor peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPARg) in obesity-associated T helper 2 cell immunopathology in asthma |
| David Blair, MD, PhD | Pediatrics | Expanding the known genetic architecture of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia by leveraging biobank-scale genotype and phenotype data |
| Leslie Suen, MD | Internal Medicine | Measuring relationships between self-reported cocaine use against blood pressure and cardiac troponin in homeless and unstably housed women |
| Jeffrey Whitman, MD, MS | Laboratory Medicine | Improving Chagas disease diagnosis: serologic, metabolomic, and proteomic characterization of Trypanosoma cruzi infection for novel diagnostic development |
StARR Leadership
The NHLBI StARR is overseen by co-Program Directors Alison Huang and Jon Singer:
Alison Huang, MD, MAS, MPhil is Professor of Medicine, Urology, and Epidemiology & Biostatistics. UCSF Profiles
Jonathan Singer, MD, MS is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Sleep Medicine. UCSF Profiles
Program Directors are also guided by a Steering/Advisory Committee of distinguished clinical and translational researchers at UCSF:
- Sagar Bapat, Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine, StARR Program Graduate, UCSF
- Kirstin Bibbins-Domingo, Lee Goldman Endowed Chair in Medicine, UCSF, JAMA Network Editor-in-Chief
- Carolyn Calfee, Professor of Medicine and of Anesthesia & Perioperative Care, UCSF
- Marcelle Cedars, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, UCSF
- Jason Christie, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania
- Michael Conte, Professor of Surgery and Edwyn J. Wylie Chair in Vascular Surgery, UCSF
- Jeffrey Fineman, Professor and Vice Chair of Pediatrics, UCSF
- Peter Ganz, Maurice Eliaser J. Distinguished Professor of Medicine, UCSF
- Judith Hellman, Professor of Anesthesia & Perioperative Care, UCSF
- Jeffrey Olgin, Professor of Medicine, UCSF
- Angela Rivers, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, UCSF
- Robert Rodriguez, Professor and Associate Chair of Clinical Research in Emergency Medicine, UCSF
Administrative oversight for StARR is provided by Christian Leiva, the administrative manager for the UCSF CTST Resident Research Training Program.
StARR FAQs
I’m interested in basic science, rather than clinical & translational science. Am I eligible for StARR?
This StARR program is designed to support residents in pursuing clinical and translational research. While this may include some forms of pre-clinical research, laboratory research that does not involve any human tissues does not fall within the scope of our program.
I'm interested in quality improvement, does the StARR program support this type of scholarly activity?
Research projects directed at improving or studying the quality of care are supported by this StARR program, provided that the research is designed and conducted in a way likely to create generalizable knowledge.
I’m a UCSF resident from a department other than one of the ones mentioned on this website. Can I apply to be a StARR scholar?
Residents from other departments may be considered for StARR, but additional legwork may be required to determine whether residents’ programs/departments can provide necessary co-support as well as confirm that StARR is compatible with training requirements for board eligibility in their discipline.
I’m a resident who is interested in research but don’t yet know if I want to make this the focus of my future career. Is StARR a good program for me?
One of the goals of StARR is to help promising residents who are interested in research to assess whether a career involving research is right for them. Residents should already have enough interest in research to devote themselves to research-related activities for one year (the StARR year), while continuing to be active in clinical care.
I’m interested in obtaining an MPH or other master’s degree relevant to clinical research. Can StARR be used to pursue this?
The NIH has indicated that StARR program funds cannot be used to obtain a degree. However, residents may use StARR funds to pursue other structured training programs that provide a strong methodological foundation for conducting research, such as the Advanced Training in Clinical Research (ATCR) certificate program and may in some cases apply coursework toward a future degree.
I'm interested in research, but I don't want to study cardiovascular, pulmonary, or hematologic health conditions. Can I use StARR to conduct research in other disease areas?
Since this program is funded by the NHLBI, StARR residents must identify at least one research project during their StARR year that is relevant to an aspect of cardiovascular, pulmonary, or hematological health. However, this program supports residents with a wide variety of perspectives on cardiovascular or pulmonary health; it is not restricted to residents planning to become cardiology, pulmonology, or hematological subspecialists.