University of Minnesota School of Public Health Assistant Professor Manka Nkimbeng has been named a McKnight Presidential Fellow. The award is one of the University of Minnesota’s highest honors for newly tenured faculty, recognizing exceptional scholarly accomplishments and leadership potential.

Nkimbeng is a nurse scientist and community-based participatory researcher whose work focuses on improving health outcomes for older adults, particularly in communities disproportionately affected by health inequities. Using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, her research examines the structural and social factors that contribute to poor health.

Raised by her grandparents in Cameroon, Nkimbeng experienced firsthand how limited access to healthcare can shape health outcomes. After immigrating to the United States, she continued to see how health systems often fail to serve everyone well. These experiences inspired her career in public health and her dedication to partnering with communities to create more equitable and culturally-responsive approaches to care.

The McKnight Presidential Fellows Program is a three-year award given to the most promising individuals who have been granted both tenure and promotion to associate professor in an academic year. It recognizes recipients who are recommended by their college dean and chosen at the discretion of the executive vice president and provost based on excellence in research and scholarship, leadership, potential to build top-tier programs, and ability to advance University of Minnesota priorities.

The award is made possible in part by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation and matched by Permanent University Fund resources.