Light & Verity

Grad student had all the right questions

Matt Amodio '23PhD became a millionaire on "Jeopardy!"

Courtesy Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

Courtesy Jeopardy Productions, Inc.

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 “Saying he ignored warnings of enemy vessels, the British Admiralty sought to blame William Turner, this ship’s last captain in 1915.”

“Named after a UK political party that helped depose a king, the US Whig Party was formed to oppose this man.”

“Ninety-six miles in total during its three-decade existence, the most well-known part of this was about the same length as an Olympic marathon.”

Those are some of the Final Jeopardy “answers” for which Matt Amodio ’23PhD (seen here with host Mayim Bialik)  was able to supply the correct “questions” that made him a millionaire on the quiz show Jeopardy! Amodio, who was always introduced as “a PhD student from New Haven, Connecticut” (Jeopardy! doesn’t identify contestants’ employers or schools), is a doctoral candidate in computer science studying machine learning and artificial intelligence. He won a total of $1,518,601 in 38 games from July 21 to October 8 before his defeat on October 11, putting him in second place for consecutive games won and third in total regular-season winnings. For now, Amodio can turn his full attention back to neural networks. But there’s always the Tournament of Champions next year.

Oh, and for the record, the questions are: What was the Lusitania?, Who was Andrew Jackson?, and What was the Berlin Wall?

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