Veteran television journalist Ann Curry to deliver Keck School of Medicine of USC MD commencement address

Emmy Award-winning journalist and photojournalist Ann Curry will deliver one of two commencement addresses at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, speaking to the 2022 class of medical students at their graduation ceremony on May 14.

A former NBC News network anchor and international correspondent, Curry has covered the wars in Syria, Darfur, Congo, the Central African Republic, Serbia, Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq, and reported on nuclear tensions from North Korea and Iran. She has also reported on humanitarian disasters, including the tsunamis in Japan and Southeast Asia, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, where her appeal via Twitter (@AnnCurry) is credited with helping to speed the arrival of humanitarian planes.

Curry is the co-executive producer and reporter of “We’ll Meet Again,” a PBS series that features reunions of people whose lives crossed, and then separated, at pivotal moments and during world-changing events. She also recently hosted a live medical series on TNT and TBS that helped find answers for real people suffering from undiagnosed or misdiagnosed illnesses. The groundbreaking series, “Chasing the Cure,” used crowdsourcing and a network of doctors to connect patients with information and access to specialists and other experts. In one case, the 4th and 5th known cases of a rare disease were discovered, leading to excitement among medical researchers in the U.S. and other parts of the world.

“Ms. Curry has often said that one of the keys to her success as a journalist is her ability to empathize with her subjects and listen carefully to their concerns,” said Donna Elliott, MD, EdD, vice dean for medical education. “She believes that these same skills can help doctors become truly successful in helping their patients. I hope her speech will inspire all of our students as they embark on their medical careers.”