Announcing our 2023 Commencement Speakers

A2 The Albany Academies Magazine

spring 2023

Editor: Ann Wendth, Chief Advancement Officer

Associate Editor: Nancy Palluti P’25

Contributors: John McNally P’37

Photography: Nancy Palluti P’25, Stephanie McCauley P’21, ’24 of iSmile Studios, Carl Sanders Socolow, Lori Van Buren of the Times Union

Design: Oberlander Group

Printing: Fort Orange Press

We’re pleased to announce that Elon D. Johnson ’94, Senior Creative Director & Head of Development at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, will be the 2023 Albany Academy for Girls commencement speaker on Monday, June 12. Called a storyteller and visionary, Ms. Johnson is an influential player in the entertainment world. She discovers, fields, creates, elevates, develops, and produces TV series, TV and feature films, and over-the-top media services offered directly to viewers via the internet. As an Emmy Award-nominated producer, Ms. Johnson has led the creation and execution of many critically acclaimed shows across several networks. She is the Senior Creative Executive, Head of Development at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. As lead of this wing, Ms. Johnson’s work consists of discovering, fielding, creating, elevating, developing and producing TV series, TV films, feature films, and OTT content. Ms. Johnson also served as a Show Producer at Anderson, Anderson Cooper’s daily talk show where she received her Emmy nod and Co-Executive Producer for several of VH1’s reality reunions. She spent four years as an in-house Executive Producer and Creative Executive at Viacom/Paramount overseeing more than a dozen multi-genre shows a year before accepting the position at Tyler Perry Studios. Most recently, She led the development and production of the scripted drama All The Queen’s Men, as well as the revamped specials of The Tyler Perry Show.

As the grandchild of immigrants, Ms. Johnson has maintained close ties to her family roots in Barbados, working on a number of international projects. Brooklyn-born Ms. Johnson is a graduate of Columbia University in New York City, now residing in Atlanta, Georgia.

Peter Kim ’87 will be the commencement speaker at The Albany Academy on Tuesday, June 13. Dr. Kim graduated from Harvard College and then Weill Medical College of Cornell University where he received his M.D. with Honors in Research. During medical school he spent a year doing research at the NIH with a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship. There he cloned and determined the structure of the human FADD gene and mapped FADD to Chromosome 11q13. He then completed a general surgery residency with three additional years of surgical research at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC hospitals.

In 2014 he completed a master’s degree in Medical Management at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. Since 2007 he has worked as an attending surgeon at North Central Bronx Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center, two municipal hospitals in New York City. Dr. Kim has also taught medical students and residents as Associate Professor of Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He started the North Bronx Faculty Practice and has served as a Director of the Board for Physician Affiliate Group of NY (PAGNY) for the last 9 years.

Recently, Dr. Kim has started a video podcast series called “Between Two Scalpels” with General Surgery News exploring new topics in the fields of surgery, anesthesia, and medicine. Currently, he resides in Pelham New York with his wife, Sarah, who is a gynecologist at Stamford Hospital.

A2, The Albany Academies Magazine, is published twice a year by the Institutional Advancement Office and sent to alumni/ae, parents, grandparents, donors, friends, and other educational institutions. Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the Chief Advancement Officer, The Albany Academies, 135 Academy Road, Albany NY, 12208 or email wendtha@albanyacademies.org.

In every effort to reduce our footprint we eliminated duplicate addresses in our mailing list. For additional copies of the magazine contact the Office of Institutional Advancement.

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