Profile: Tom Roman ‘19 by Seamus Gallivan ‘96, Alumni Engagement Coordinator Tom Roman found himself at Park in Grade 10 after other schools doubted and stunted his learning abilities. He called his experience at Park “a 180,” and lately he’s come full circle, bringing current students into his career path. After starting college at the University at Buffalo, Tom is now on the cusp of earning a degree in Game Design and Development from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He won a semesterlong grant to create an educational video game for math teachers and high school students called Function Junction, which teaches function transformations and how to understand the meaning of equations, and won the impact category at RPI GameFest 2026. “Everything at Park felt immediately great,” Tom recalled during a return visit with longtime math teacher Bill Fedirko. “A lot of the problems I had navigating school environments went away. I had an amazing guidance counselor in [the late Karen] Miller, and I liked my advisors Mr. Fedirko and Mr. [Steve] George [‘97]. I was able to excel because teachers were flexible.” Bill considers Tom’s example to be both profound and ideal. “I first taught Tom in pre-calculus, and while I’d usually ask students to put away their computers when assigned to solve a problem, I saw Tom typing really fast - faster than a normal person,” he marveled. “I looked at his screen, and he was coding, writing a program; I was amazed, so I let him go. “After a couple days, he said, ‘Mr. Fedirko, I want to be honest with you - I’m programming my notes.’ He’d already applied quadratics, gravity, and the laws of physics into a simulation, which was crazy to me to be that quick. And he’d developed his own style, like it was his primary language - which is another level of integrity. “It was almost like discovering that you have Van Gogh in your art class, so effortlessly painting beautiful things.” That year happened to have an Immersion focus on robotics, in which students learned how to build and code robots. “I kind of wanted to go on the Iceland Immersion,” he recalled. “Ulitimately I did the Robotics Immersion with Mr. Fedirko and Mr. [Glen] Herman, which was a great decision. We bought a really big kit with circuit boards, and I learned how to read manuals, which is probably the most important skill in programming.” Tom credits tech teacher Dave Weeks with opening his mind to programming by complimenting his skills in the video game Minecraft, which had been considered a distraction at other schools. And he recalled another early success in programming in math class with Tammy Giancola, who encouraged him to program scripts that ended debates by proving his answers. Considering his career path, Tom framed his Senior Thesis around the educational potential of video games. “Senior Thesis was really big for me,” he reflected. “It was a rigorous process, almost like choosing a college major - a huge assignment to think about what you’re interested in, work with an advisor and commit to deep research and writing, which is what you’ll be doing in college.” Tom created a video game for his Senior Project, which gave him confidence to pursue the craft. After graduation, he kept Bill updated on his plans, which turned into collaboration on each other’s pursuits including the Function Junction game. Now that he’s been tasked with creating it through RIT, he’s involving Park students in testing the prototype. “I’m happy to reconnect with Park and bring something practical to the table,” Tom said. “And being friends now with Bill, it’s a way to apply our similar philosophies. Most importantly, I think there’s a genuine duty to give back to the places that brought you up. I still feel part of this community and culture.” Tom as a sophomore on the cross country team coached by teacher Cheryl Benzinger Tom won the Junior Class “dead hang” challenge at Country Fair ‘25, as certified by student Gabe Epstein (left) and witnessed by classmate Drew Butler ‘19
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