University of Virginia

This is the ninth in Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, and politics, among other areas. Arab America highlights our ninth pathbreaker, Tom Shadyac, Arab American, prestigious film director, producer, and sometime actor, and proud son of Lebanese Christian parents. He has brought strains of Lebanese culture and religion into his life and his family is deeply involved in St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee and its fundraising arm, American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities.