Robert Thompson is the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture and a Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture.  He was a visiting professor for six summers at Cornell University and served for nine years as professor and director of the N.H.S.I. Television and Film Institute at Northwestern University.  Thompson is the general editor of an ongoing series of books about television published by Syracuse University Press.  He is the former president of the National Popular Culture Association and lectures across the country on the subject of television and popular culture.  In 1991 and 1992, he was awarded the Stephen H. Coltrin Award for Excellence in Communication Theory by the International Radio and Television Society.  Robert is the author or editor of five books:  ''Television's Second Golden Age'' (Continuum, 1996); ''Prime Time, Prime Movers'' (Little, Brown, 1992); ''Adventures on Prime Time'' (Praeger, 1990); and ''Television Studies'' (Praeger 1989).  Robert has been dubbed a ''pop culture ambassador'' by the Associated Press, and also has contributed to hundreds of radio and TV programs and publications.