AED Scholarship & Grant Information

The Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) is pleased to offer the following travel scholarships and research grants. All applicants must fill out the AED common scholarship/grant application form and complete specific application requirements for the AED scholarship or grant for which you're applying. Specific application requirements can be obtained by clicking on the title of each award below. To support the AED scholarship and grants, donate to the AED Scholarship Fund. 

Travel Scholarships

AED Clinician Scholarship Program
AED has established a Clinician Scholarship program to help defray annual meeting costs for clinicians and educators who otherwise might not be able to afford conference fees. The intent of this scholarship program is to provide the applicant with knowledge and skills that will then be disseminated by the applicant in his/her community. See past recipients.

AED Student Early Career Investigator Travel Scholarship Program
AED funds students and those in the early stages of their career to attend the International Conference on Eating Disorders. Pending the availability of funds, additional travel fellowships will be awarded from funds from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to those who qualify. See past recipients.

John H. Sayler Memorial Scholarship
This program is named in honor of AED Past President Judith Banker's late husband, John H. Sayler, who demonstrated unflagging support of her involvement in the AED and her commitment to the Academy's professional scholarship program and global education and training programs integrating research and practice. AED will award the John H. Sayler Memorial Scholarships for travel to the ICED to those who apply for the Clinician or Early Career Scholarships. Gifts directed to this program will support professional education initiatives that advance these themes. See past recipients.

ANZAED/AED Young Investigator Travel Scholarship
The ANZAED/AED Young Investigator Travel Scholarship is a joint initiative between the sister organizations to encourage Antipodeans early in their research career to present their work at the ICED.

Research Grants

The purpose of the program is to support innovative and cutting-edge research conducted by student members of AED.

AED Research Grants
These grants can be used to support any aspect of a student research project, including (but not limited to) participant payments, support staff salaries and costs related to study assessments and/or database management. These awards serve the dual purpose of enhancing the training of our student members and advancing the science in our field by funding the most innovative and promising research. See past recipients.

Outside Funding and Training Opportunities

Several other organizations offer funding opportunities for eating disorders research. Specific application requirements can be obtained by clicking on the title of each award below.

Research Grants and Training Opportunities

National Institutes of Health Translational Research in Eating Disorders
The National Institutes of Health is committed to supporting research that will transform basic research discoveries into treatments or methods for prevention. This funding opportunity announcement seeks to foster the development of translational research studies that will increase our scientific understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of eating disorders.

NIMH would like to encourage research grant applications that will advance our understanding of the etiology, early identification, best treatment and medical sequelae of eating disorders. The previse etiology of eating disorders remains unknown, but ongoing research implicates genetic (heritability estimate 0.5-0.8), neurochemical, psychological and cultural factors. This program announcement is designed to encourage innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to address the dearth or research in this area.

Klarman Family Foundation Grants Program in Eating Disorders Research
The Klarman Family Foundation is interested in providing strategic investment in translational research that will accelerate progress in developing effective treatments for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. The program's short-term goal is to support the most outstanding science and expand the pool of scientists whose research explores the basic biology of eating disorders. The long-term goal is to improve the lives of patients sufferering from these conditions.

Examples of funding areas include but are not limited to molecular genetic analysis of relevant neural circuit assembly and function; epigenetic research; animal models created by genetically altering neural circuits; and testing of new chemical entities that might be used in animal models as exploratory treatments. Please note that imaging studies will NOT be accepted in the 2011 grant cycle. Investigators conducting research in the neuro-circuitry of fear conditioning or reward behavior may also apply but must justify the relevance of their research projects to the basic biology of eating disorders. Clinical psychotherapeutic studies, medication trials and research in the medical complications of these disorders are outside the scope of this program.

Two-year awards of $400,000 USD ($200,000 per year inclusive of 10 percent indirect costs) and one-year pilot studies of up to $150,000 USD (inclusive of 10 percent indirect costs) are made to investigators with a faculty appointment at a nonprofit academic, medical or research institution in the United States, Canada or Israel.

Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED)
Eating disorders and disordered weight control behaviors present a significant threat to the health of adolescents and adults, yet they remain largely overlooked by public health and preventive medicine professionals. To address this critical need, we launched STRIPED in July 2009, based at the Harvard School of Public Health and Children’s Hospital Boston, with the goal of building a transdisciplinary training initiative that will generate professionals with the depth and range of expertise and skills needed to take on the challenge of eating disorders prevention.

Our initiative is a public health incubator, designed to cultivate the creation of novel insights and strategies for prevention by introducing trainees to a rich array of disciplinary perspectives, methodologies, and theories and providing them with opportunities to join crosscutting collaborative teams.

Matina S. Horner Summer Research Fellowship
The Matina S. Horner, Ph.D. Summer Research Fellowship Program is designed to mentor young investigators in the field of eating disorders. Fellows accepted into the program will complete a 10-week independent research project at the Harris Center. In completing the project, our Fellows receive supervision and mentorship, participate in current research activities, and meet weekly with our staff.

Fellowships will be awarded to outstanding applicants who submit a proposal that describes an original research project. Applicants should design a research proposal so that the project can be completed within the 10-week fellowship period.