NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Comedian and physician Ken Jeong will be the keynote speaker at the University of New Orleans Commencement, after a year of research after completing a residency at a local hospital.
Tulane University President Michael Fitts said in a news conference that there is often a debate about whether a speaker should be an academic achievement or a celebrity, but Zheng is a bit of both.
Tulane University said the May 21 ceremony will be the first in-person for all graduates since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jeong performed in comedy clubs in New Orleans in the 1990s while serving as an internal medicine residency at the original hospital at Ochsner Health System, followed by a research fellowship at Tulane Medical College. In 1995, he won the city’s Big Easy Laff Off, judged by improv comedy club founder Bud Friedman and former NBC president Brandon Tatikov. Jeong had the opportunity to perform at Improv in Los Angeles.
Since then, his performances include Mr. Chow in the “Hangover” movie and its sequel; Mr. Chang in the TV show “Community,” Wye Mun Goh in the movie “Crazy Rich Asians”, and his own Netflix stand-up Comedy special “You Complete Me, Ho”. He was on the ABC sitcom “Dr. Ken. He was a judge on six seasons of “The Masked Singer” and was the host and executive producer of “I Can See Your Voice.”
Jeong’s undergraduate degree is from Duke University, which also conferred honors on him, and his medical degree is from the University of North Carolina.
He worked as a doctor for many years, worked part-time in a comedy club and worked as an actor. He became a full-time actor after the huge success of the 2007 film “Knocked Up,” in which he played an exhausted doctor.
In 2018, he used his medical training to help an audience member who had a seizure while performing at a Phoenix comedy club. He volunteered to fight cancer and spoke out against racism and hate crimes against members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
