During RSNA 2022, RSNA presented awards for significant achievement in the field of radiology.
Honorary Members
Michael Fuchsjäger, MD
Fuchsjäger
An international authority on breast imaging and intervention techniques, Michael Fuchsjäger, MD, is chair of the Department of Radiology at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, where he has also held professorship since 2012. Previously he served as chair of the Clinical Imaging Institute at Al Ain Hospital in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Fuchsjäger’s academic and clinical interest is primarily focused on breast radiology and intervention, including minimally invasive therapy as well as assessment of 4D blood flow and tissue characterization by cardiac MRI. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, held over 200 scientific lectures and poster presentations and presented more than 600 educational lectures at the most prestigious radiology conferences worldwide.
Past president of the European Society of Radiology, Dr. Fuchsjäger hosted the 2021 European Congress of Radiology as president and held various committee appointments since 2012. He is also an executive board member of the International Society for Strategic Studies in Radiology and has lent his expertise to numerous radiology organizations serving as an executive board member of the European Society of Breast Imaging and as a board member of the Austrian Society of Senology and the Austrian Roentgen Society.
Dr. Fuchsjäger provides peer review for 20+ scientific journals and has served on the editorial boards of Radiology, European Radiology, Insights Into Imaging, Der Radiologe, The Scientific World Journal and Investigative Radiology.
Dr. Fuchsjäger’s many contributions to the field have been recognized with over 100 awards, including the Schering and Wolf-Dieter Sager awards of the Austrian Roentgen Society, Excellence in Imaging and Diagnostics from Arab Health and the Science Award by the city of Vienna honoring his body of scientific research. He received the Radiology Editor’s Recognition Award in 2011 and 2012 for providing article review with distinction. He holds honorary membership in the Israel Radiological Society.
Dr. Fuchsjäger received his medical degree from the University of Vienna in Austria and completed his residency at the Medical University of Vienna’s Department of Radiology. He completed a post- doctoral research fellowship at the Department of Radiology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Evis Sala, MD, PhD, FRCR, FRCP
Sala
A world-renowned cancer researcher, Evis Sala, MD, PhD, FRCR, FRCP, has significantly advanced the field’s understanding of ovarian cancer. Her multidisciplinary research program integrates imaging, genomics, engineering and AI to advance patient care. Dr. Sala is a professor of radiology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and chair of the Department of Radiology at Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCC, Rome, Italy. Previously, she was the professor of oncological imaging in the Department of Radiology at the University of Cambridge, U.K. and co-led the Cambridge Cancer Centre’s Advanced Cancer Imaging Programme and the Integrated Cancer Medicine Programme. From 2013 to 2018, she served as the chief of body imaging service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Dr. Sala’s research focuses on the development and validation of functional imaging biomarkers to rapidly evaluate treatment response using physiologic and metabolic tumor habitat imaging. Her research in the field of radiogenomics has focused on understanding the molecular basis of cancer by demonstrating the phenotypic patterns which result from multiple genetic alterations that interact with the tumor microenvironment to drive the disease in several tumor types. Her work integrates quantitative imaging methods for evaluation of spatial and temporal tumor heterogeneity with genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. She also leads multiple research projects focusing on the development and implementation of AI methods for image reconstruction, segmentation and data integration.
Her contributions to cancer imaging span the development of functional imaging biomarkers to the creation of novel imaging-based virtual biopsy methods. Dr. Sala’s ability and passion drive her to connect across disciplines and build creative teams at multiple world-class institutions.
A widely respected mentor, educator and orator, Dr. Sala earned the RSNA Honored Educator Award in 2014, 2017 and 2020. Her leadership extends to the most important international bodies in the field. She is a fellow of the International Cancer Imaging Society, the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the European Society of Urogenital Radiology and the Royal College of Physicians, U.K.
Dr. Sala serves as an associate editor of Cancer Research Communications and a senior consulting editor to Radiology: Artificial Intelligence.
After earning her medical degree at the University of Tirana Medical School in Albania, Dr. Sala earned a master’s and PhD in epidemiology at the University of Cambridge. She completed fellowships at the World Health Organization in cancer research and cancer epidemiology.
Evelyn Lai Ming Ho, MBBS, MMed
Lai Ming Ho
A passionate advocate for breast health and palliative care, Evelyn Lai Ming Ho, MBBS, MMed, believes the patient’s interests should always be at the core of medical care. Dr. Ho practices as a consultant radiologist in Park City Medical Centre Kuala Lumpur, where she was instrumental in establishing the radiology department.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Malaya, Dr. Ho served under the Ministry of Health of Malaysia in Sarawak, East Malaysia, and in Kota Bahru before returning to Kuala Lumpur in 1990. Therefore, by the time she entered her residency (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia master’s program), Dr. Ho was familiar with the geographic health disparities patients face.
Dr. Ho has served internationally in leadership roles, including as secretary treasurer of the ASEAN Association of Radiology from 2004-2006. As the first female president of the College of Radiology (CoR) under the Academy of Medicine Malaysia (AMM), she catalyzed the CoR and National Heart Association of Malaysia collaboration to create the first Consensus Statement on Utilization of Cardiac CT. She served as a member of the expert panel for the first edition of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Breast Cancer. Dr. Ho organized and helmed the CoR website from its inception in 2001 until 2014, increasing radiology’s public profile and visibility across medicine. Dr. Ho was involved in the first QAP study on mammography in Malaysia in 2005. She organized and led nationwide breast cancer awareness campaigns and subsidized value-added mammogram programs under the CoR umbrella.
In 2010, she was elected to the AMM council, and appointed Bursar from 2014- 2016. While serving the AMM, Dr. Ho was involved in the early days of setting up the continuing professional development system in Malaysia. She is president of the Asian Oceanian Society of Radiology, serves on the RSNA News Editorial Board, chairs the RSNA Regional Committee for Asia Oceania, and is an executive committee continental member of the International Society of Radiology.
Dr. Ho is a Fellow of the AMM, Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, and Honorary Member of the Chinese Society of Radiology. Recognized for her leadership in breast health advocacy, she was voted The Malaysian Women’s Weekly Great Women of Our Time Awards “Most Inspiring Woman” in 2010. Her World magazine featured her in 2018 in the “Inspire Change” Avon series.
Outstanding Educator
Dennis M. Balfe, MD
Balfe
Revered educator Dennis M. Balfe, MD, has mentored countless radiologists during his tenure spanning four decades at Washington University School of Medicine’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in St. Louis.
Currently emeritus professor of radiology at Mallinckrodt, Dr. Balfe began his career there as an instructor in radiology, became a tenured professor in 1992 and served as the radiology residency program director from 1992 to 2006.
A leader in organized radiology, Dr. Balfe is past president of the Society of Computed Body Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (SABI) and of the Society of Abdominal Radiology. He also served as chair of the American Board of Radiology Board of Trustees in 2004 and as an oral examiner.
Dr. Balfe was awarded the Residents’ Distinguished Teaching Award at Mallinckrodt by his students multiple times throughout his career. He received the SABI Hounsfield Award and American College of Radiology fellowship in 1994. Dr. Balfe was recognized by the Barnes Jewish Hospital with its lifetime achievement award, Distinguished Clinician, in 2016.
For two decades, Dr. Balfe served as associate editor for body imaging of RadioGraphics and he has reviewed articles for several radiology journals including the American Journal of Roentgenology and Radiology.
Dr. Balfe obtained a bachelor’s degree at the University of Santa Clara in California and completed his medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Following an internship and residency in diagnostic radiology at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco, he completed a fellowship in the abdominal section at Mallinckrodt.
Outstanding Researcher
Maryellen Giger, PhD
Giger
Esteemed researcher Maryellen Giger, PhD, has worked for decades on computer-aided diagnosis, machine learning, and deep learning in medical imaging for cancer, thoracic diseases including COVID-19, neuro-imaging and other disease diagnosis and management.
Dr. Giger is the A.N. Pritzker Distinguished Service Professor of Radiology, the Committee on Medical Physics, and the College at the University of Chicago. She is also the vice-chair of radiology (basic science research) and the prior director of the Graduate Program in Medical Physics/chair of the Committee on Medical Physics.
Her AI research in breast cancer for risk assessment, diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic response has yielded various translated components, and she has used these “virtual biopsies” in imaging-genomics association studies. She has extended her AI in medical imaging research to include the analysis of COVID-19 on CT and chest radiographs and is the contact principal investigator on the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)-funded Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center (MIDRC; midrc.org), a collaboration of RSNA, the American College of Radiology and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) that is hosted at the University of Chicago.
Over the course of her career, Dr. Giger has published more than 260 peer-reviewed articles and obtained more than 30 patents. She has mentored over 100 graduate students, residents, medical students and undergraduate students. She was cofounder of Quantitative Insights, now Qlarity Imaging, which produces QuantX, the first FDA-cleared, machine-learning driven CADx (AI-aided) system. A leader in the medical physics community, Dr. Giger is a former president of AAPM and of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). She is a member of the NIH NIBIB Advisory Council and is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Imaging.
Widely recognized for her contributions to the field, Dr. Giger has been awarded the AAPM William D. Coolidge Gold Medal, the SPIE Director’s Award, and the SPIE Harrison H. Barrett Award in Medical Imaging. She served as an RSNA third vice president and, in 2010, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). She has also been recognized with the Society of Directors of Academic Medical Physics Programs Lifetime Achievement Award. She received the RSNA Honored Educator Award and is a fellow of AAPM, American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering, Chinese Optical Society, IEEE, International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering and SPIE. In 2013, Giger was named by the International Congress on Medical Physics (ICMP) as one of the 50 medical physicists with the most impact on the field in the last 50 years.
Dr. Giger completed a bachelor’s degree at Illinois Benedictine College, a master’s degree in physics at the University of Exeter in England, and a PhD in medical physics at the University of Chicago.
