RSNA 2024: Outstanding Community Impact Award Recipient: Frank J. Minja, MD 

An inspiring leader with a passion for global health, Frank J. Minja, MD, has devoted his career to advancing health care access in East Africa, setting a powerful example for what is achievable in low- and middle-income environments worldwide. 

“Dr Minja’s community engagement sets an example for all of us,” said RSNA President, Curtis P. Langlotz, MD, PhD. “His evidence-based programs bring sustained improvements to the lives of patients and physicians in Tanzania, across the African continent, and around the world.”

Dr. Minja co-leads the Road2IR consortium, which established the first interventional radiology fellowship in East Africa. To date, the fellowship has graduated 13 alumni from Tanzania, Nigeria and Rwanda. He is credited with strengthening the PACS, informatics and data reporting capabilities of the Department of Radiology at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), a public tertiary care facility in his homeland of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.  

In 2021, Dr. Minja was named program director for the RSNA Global Learning Center (GLC) at MNH, launching a multi-year effort to deliver quality radiology curriculum development, test preparation and in-person and remote instruction to the institution. He helped establish new subspecialty fellowships in interventional radiology, neuroradiology and women’s imaging.  

Dedicated to expanding access to education, Dr. Minja coordinated teams of radiologists worldwide to teach residents and trainees from MNH, helping build Tanzanian radiology into the largest training program in East Africa. He has hosted Tanzanian radiologists at his home institutions in the U.S. to increase their opportunities for education, training and professional exposure. He has empowered professionals underrepresented in medicine to advance their skills and pursue leadership roles.  

Dr. Minja is associate professor of neuroradiology in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. He serves as medical director of the diagnostic imaging hospital service line and associate chief of radiology at Emory University Hospital.  

Resourceful and tireless, Dr. Minja works closely with administrative and government leaders, navigating bureaucratic and structural barriers that can impede health care advancement. He brought equipment and resources to MNH—many the first of their kind in Tanzania and developed long-term interventions to tackle common program and resource sustainability challenges. 

In addition to his unwavering commitment to the RSNA GLC, Dr. Minja was president of the Diaspora Council of Tanzanians in America (DICOTA), organizing and moderating over 20 public webinars on health care topics including the COVID-19 pandemic and health care capacity building in East Africa.  

Dr. Minja is a dedicated member of national and international organizations including RSNA, the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR), the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), and the American College of Radiology (ACR). He chairs the Emory Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences Committee on Global Health.  

A widely respected educator, Dr. Minja has received multiple awards for excellence in teaching. He was granted the inaugural global health education innovation award by the Office of Global Health Education, Yale University School of Medicine. 

Dr. Minja completed his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, graduating cum laude from Harvard College in Cambridge, MA, and earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He fulfilled an internal medicine internship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and completed his diagnostic radiology residency and a clinical fellowship in neuroradiology at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.