Assistant Professor at UW-Eau Claire Selected for Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowship

Thursday, October 22nd, 2026 -- 8:01 AM

Rob Eckard, an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, 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 2026 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. 21-23, 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. Eckard is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire where he teaches screenwriting and media studies.

He’s currently teaching a television studies course on showrunners, investigating the evolution of television creators as storytellers and producers across their careers. He is also the co-director of Emerson College’s Screenwriters Lab in Aotearoa, New Zealand—a study-abroad program that immerses students into New Zealand screen cultures before they produce their own scripts during an intensive lab.

As a screenwriter, his creative work is inspired by his Southern roots and queer identity. He is the co-writer of “The Perfect Man(icure),” produced by Reel One Entertainment, and his original half-hour dark comedy pilot “Drywall” received the Showtime Tony Cox Award at the Nantucket Film Festival. Eckard holds degrees in theatre education and screenwriting from NYU and Emerson College.

(Photo provided via press release)

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