California State University Long Beach Professor Selected for Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowship

Dr. Christopher D. Karadjov, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, 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.

Karadjov is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Public Relations at California State University, Long Beach. A native of Bulgaria, he studies Eastern European media, focusing on comparative studies that juxtapose journalism practices and media influences in Eastern Europe with those in other parts of the world.

Karadjov began his career in journalism in Bulgaria where he worked for the country’s largest daily newspaper, 24 Hours, as a senior government reporter. Later, he became the domestic news editor for Standart News. He spent six months working as a reporter for the Dallas Morning News in 1996 as part of a Washington-based fellowship. Upon his return to Bulgaria, he assumed the role of deputy editor-in-chief in charge of reporting with Sega, a renowned weekly political magazine in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Karadjov started his academic career as an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Oswego, New York, and joined the faculty at Cal State Long Beach in 2005. He is actively involved in the International Communication Association, especially its Journalism Interest Group. He is also a member of AEJMC and several other professional organizations, including the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Karadjov holds a doctorate in mass communications from the University of Florida and a master’s in journalism/mass communication from Sofia University in Bulgaria.