Tom Palaima is Robert M. Armstrong Professor of Classics and founding director of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (est. 1986) at the University of Texas at Austin.

A MacArthur fellow, he has written over 130 scholarly articles, including four definitive explorations of ruler ideology 1600-500 BCE in Greece and surrounding cultures. He is author of ten books, nearly 350 public intellectual commentaries and feature pieces and over 100 book reviews. He serves on the editorial boards of The Dylan Review and Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici NS. In 2023 he was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

See: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/classics/faculty/palaimat