Next question: Which Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School student is a Jeopardy! champ?

How did the process of applying to “Jeopardy!” compare to applying to Harvard?  

It was definitely a little less detailed. You begin the application process with a 50-question quiz. And then if you get enough answers right, they bring you on to redo the quiz, but in a Zoom environment, to make sure you’re not looking up the answers online.  

And then they put you in an audition room with eight other people, which was actually similar to the format they used when I applied for Georgetown Law—they also put you in a Zoom room with a group of people, and you had to have a discussion. But no essays, no submission of transcripts or undergrad grades, so it’s probably a little easier.

Did any of your HKS training in decision science or statistics influence your “Jeopardy!”  gameplay?  

I don’t know if I ever consciously thought, “oh, I took X class, I will use that strategy.” But there was maybe some statistically informed thinking that went on. I played along with the game for the five years leading up to going on the show and also went through some of the games in years past. 

I never actually sat down and ran R-code or did a deep-dive statistical analysis. But over time, I noticed, “these seem to be the types of categories they like to put the daily doubles in”—and so I tried to develop an intuition for that. That helped a lot. There were a couple of games when it came down to finding the daily doubles that, if I hadn’t found them, I might not have won the game.

Which HKS professors do you think would be great “Jeopardy!” contestants?    

I had a class with Alex Keyssar: “Democracy: The Long View and the Bumpy History.” He was always very good with dates and specifics and had a very wide breadth of knowledge. 

I’d love to see Steve Walt on the show. I could imagine him telling an anecdote during the break and really getting enjoyment out of that. 

There are lots of professors—Zoe Marks, Erica Chenoweth—I would love to see on “Jeopardy!”  as well. 

Did orientation sessions at two graduate schools prepare you for the “small talk” interview portion with Ken Jennings between rounds?  

I think the past couple years of repeating the same anecdotes and having to introduce myself over and over again definitely set me up for that. Backstage, where you’re able to socialize with the other contestants, it did almost feel like a little orientation all over again. 

The nice thing about the “Jeopardy!” anecdotes is you can put forward which ones you want to tell, and they’ll choose the ones they think are appropriate. So I probably didn’t talk about my love of fruit or playing tennis as much in the HKS/HLS orientations, but I was happy I could talk about that on “Jeopardy!”  

HKS is a very international community. Did having friends from all over the world help you prepare for some of the show’s global questions?   

It’s definitely helped me—it’s so awesome that there are so many people from all over the world, and it’s so interesting to learn about foods, history, and cultures from all over. I’ve learned so much from all my classmates over the years.  

I’d qualify it by saying it’s sometimes a bad thing—because sometimes when you know too much about an area, it can actually backfire. 

My roommate is from India, and we’ve had long conversations about life in the United States and India. I thought I remembered him mentioning that about a third of India is vegetarian. And there was a question during one of the games that said “thirty-eight percent of this country is vegetarian”—turns out stats vary between sources. But I just had that thirty-three percent fact so stuck in my head and thought there must be a smaller country that’s even more vegetarian or something. So in that case I almost felt like I knew too much about that particular subject.   

Can you make a case for “Jeopardy!” as a public good?  

Ken Jennings wrote an op-ed in the New York Times a year or two ago—making the case that “Jeopardy!” was a place where people acknowledged shared facts and bonded over common knowledge in an age of disinformation and polarized channels. It feels like a bipartisan space where people bond. 

Obviously, there are interpretations of facts and ways politics gets layered on top of common factual understanding. But beginning by acknowledging there are objective truths we can base policy on and use data to analyze is quite important. 

The work of interpreting facts and creating narratives that will move policy is the harder part, and that’s where the Kennedy School has been really helpful. That’s the point Ken made, and I agree with him. 

Going on national TV and heading to Harvard for a joint graduate degree are both steps that could make someone feel intimidated. Do you have advice for people starting out on something that scares them?  

I’ve been overwhelmed by how supportive everyone in my life has been—not that I expected anyone to be unsupportive…but oftentimes I anticipate the worst thing that could happen if I put myself out there, without realizing that the people around me want to support me. That’s been true of going on “Jeopardy!” and also of being at HKS—everyone in my cohort has been super supportive, cheering me on, which has been awesome. 

So my advice is just to not focus “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” but to ask, “what are the potential upsides?” I guess that’s what they’d say in one of the risk management classes at HKS. 

Can you tell us about the community of contestants you played with?  

Everyone has been super friendly. I have group chats with most of the other contestants I was with. I was able to go to a couple of watch parties for other contestants who were on the show before me. 

It’s a really great community. Everyone talked about the shared experience of studying for the show, and their friends getting sick of hearing about it. The first day I was there, someone asked, “Does anyone remember the capital of Moldova?” Everyone in unison said “Chișinău.” It’s a unique environment. The only other room I’ve been in where that same thing could have happened is when I did an internship with the Department of State, and everyone going abroad knew all the capitals they were headed to. Maybe there are certain classes at HKS where that would happen too, given how international it is—I have a friend from Moldova at the Law School, actually, so that probably helped it stick in my mind. 

The community, and how supportive all the contestants are of one another, is something you don’t always see on the show, because you don’t get to see contestant interaction. But behind the scenes, everyone’s cheering each other on. 

If Ken Jennings had to be a professor at any Harvard school, where do you think he should teach?  

I know he used to be a computer programmer, so the obvious one would be teaching a computer science class in FAS. Someone asked him what trivia categories he liked best, and his answers were pretty unexpected—he really likes movies and pro wrestling, which I would never have guessed. 

Maybe I’d put him in a film class. He seems to watch a lot of movies and is pretty good at analyzing themes. I haven’t seen any pro wrestling classes at Harvard.  

I don’t think he’d enjoy teaching a Law School class—that’s probably a little outside his wheelhouse. And I assume the same for Kennedy School classes. But who knows—maybe he could do public speaking. He’s a very charismatic public speaker. 

Images courtesy of Caleb Groen MPP/JD 2027 and Yvonne Groen HLS 1997