Palm Beach Atlantic University Professor Receives Distinguished Fellowship

Palm Beach Atlantic University Professor Dr. Thomas Parham has been selected for an Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowship by the Television Academy Foundation in Hollywood. He is one of 18 professors selected from colleges and universities nationwide for the 2025 fellowship program.

Since 2021, the Foundation has offered Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowships, established by the Harry & Judy Friedman Family Foundation, in honor of the late television icon and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, which provide financial support for educators from community colleges and minority-serving institutions to attend its annual Media Educators Conference. The three-day conference, held at the Television Academy's North Hollywood campus in California Oct. 22-24, connects college classrooms with the television industry by providing media professors with curriculum-enhancing seminars on the latest in the art, science and business of television with prominent leaders in entertainment.

Dr. Thomas Parham

Dr. Thomas Parham is a professor of communication and media studies and an associate dean for Palm Beach Atlantic University's College of the Arts. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Parham spent seven years on active duty, during which he qualified as a Surface Warfare Officer. He left the Navy to complete graduate degrees in performing arts and communication studies.

Parham worked at Paramount Pictures in the mid-90s as supervisor of publishing for the studio's licensing division and also worked on more than 100 episodes of broadcast television during that decade. He wrote for the long-running CBS drama JAG and the Family Channel sitcom Big Brother Jake and served as an on-location writers' assistant for Touched by an Angel's third season.

His teaching experience includes Biola University and Azusa Pacific University where he created graduate and undergraduate screenwriting degree programs and served as founding chair for the Department of Cinematic Arts.

Parham's awards include 2025 Fulbright Canada Research Chair, Azusa Pacific's 2013 Undergraduate Faculty Scholarly Achievement Award, and Act One's 2007 Faculty Award. He has contributed chapters to several media studies books, and McFarland & Company publishing released his monograph "Hailing Frequencies Open": Communication in Star Trek: The Next Generation in 2019.

About the Television Academy Foundation

Established in 1959 as the charitable arm of the Television Academy, the Television Academy Foundation is dedicated to preserving the legacy of television while educating and inspiring those who will shape its future. Through renowned educational and outreach programs, such as The Interviews: An Oral History of Television Project, Access: Behind the Screens, College Television Awards, Student Internship Program and the Media Educators Conference, the Foundation seeks to widen the circle of voices our industry represents and to create more opportunity for television to reflect all of society. For more information on the Foundation, please visit TelevisionAcademy.com/Foundation.