Predoctoral fellowships from the American Heart Association (AHA) are hard to come by, but two UTA students in kinesiology have received the highly competitive honor for their cardiovascular research.
Andrew Oneglia is researching cardiac dysfunction, while Damsara Nandadeva focuses on racial differences and long-term effects of COVID-19 on vascular function in healthy young adults.
“The AHA’s focus to prevent heart disease through research aligns with the aims of what our work in the lab is trying to solve and what I focus on specifically,” Oneglia says. “I am humbled and extremely grateful to receive this award, which will allow me to focus 100% on my research studies for the remainder of my graduate training.”
Nandadeva received her undergraduate degree in medicine and her master’s in exercise physiology from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. She came to UT Arlington in the fall of 2018 to conduct research in the field of neural control of the cardiovascular system in health and disease.
“Receiving this grant is a great honor,” Nandadeva says. “Now that I am funded and have a dedicated research project that will be my dissertation, this really helps set me up for my long-term goal of being an independent researcher one day.”
