KMarie King, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., FACS is the Henry and Sally Schaffer Chair of Surgery and Professor of Surgery at Albany Medical College, as well as the Chief of Surgery at Albany Medical Center Hospital. She made history in 2021 by becoming the first Black female chair of surgery at an academic health science center in the United States.

A fellowship-trained hepatobiliary and pancreas surgeon, Dr. King previously served as a professor of surgery at Morehouse School of Medicine and as the chief of surgery and inaugural medical director for surgical quality at Grady Memorial Hospital (GMH) in Atlanta. At GMH, she was also the surgeon champion for the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.

Dr. King completed her fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where she also earned a master’s degree in biomedical science. She completed her residency training in general surgery and a research fellowship in surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and earned her medical degree at Washington University in St. Louis. Additionally, Dr. King holds a Master of Business Administration from Brandeis University. She is a United States Army veteran, having served in Operation Desert Storm.

A prolific researcher, Dr. King has received numerous awards for her research in liver and pancreatic cancers and has authored more than one hundred peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. Her professional memberships include the Society of Black Academic Surgeons, where she serves as President, the American College of Surgeons, and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, where she is a past member of the Board of Trustees. She also serves as the Immediate Past President for the Society of Surgical Chairs, is an oral examiner for the American Board of Surgery and is the immediate past Surgery External Examiner for the University of the West Indies. She sits on the board of the PBS affiliate WMHT in Troy, NY. Recently, she served as the 2024 commencement speaker and received an honorary doctorate of Human Letters from her alma mater St. Joseph’s University, New York, and was honored with a Women in Leadership 2024 award from the Albany Business Review.