A University of Georgia graduate from Marietta won more than $18,000 during a two-night run on “Jeopardy!”
Ryan Fox, who graduated from UGA in May with a doctorate in mathematics education, beat out two other contestants on the quiz show’s July 26 episode and was invited back the next day, according to the University of Georgia News Service.
“When the announcer Johnny Gilbert says, ‘And our returning champion,’ and that applies to you, you’re just in awe,” Fox said. “I felt like I’d wake up from this dream. It was too strange to believe.”
Fox competed in March, but the episodes didn't air until July 26 and 27.
“I jokingly call it my best week ever,” he said. “I turned in the dissertation then went on ‘Jeopardy!,’ where I had to go to L.A. and meet Alex Trebek and answer questions in front of the lights, the cameras and the audience, and then, 24 hours later, I’m interviewing for a job that I ended up getting. It was all strange and surreal and wonderful wrapped into one.”
Fox, who earned a master’s degree in math education from UGA in 2007, has taken a position as assistant professor of mathematics education at the University of Pennsylvania, Abington.
