Podcast Ep. 114: Go Behind the Scenes of ‘Jeopardy!’ with Purdue’s Super-Champion Adriana Harmeyer

Ken Jennings and Adriana Harmeyer

In this episode of “This Is Purdue,” we’re talking to Adriana Harmeyer, clinical assistant professor and archivist for university history, and “Jeopardy!” super-champion.

In May and June 2024, Adriana earned super-champion status after winning 15 consecutive games of “Jeopardy!” As a longtime fan of this Emmy Award-winning game show, she was able to make her “Jeopardy!” dreams come true thanks to plenty of preparation and persistence.

In this episode you will:

  • Go behind the scenes of “Jeopardy!” as Adriana shares what it’s like to apply for the show, see the Alex Trebek Stage for the first time and meet host Ken Jennings. You’ll be surprised at how many episodes are filmed each day!
  • Find out how she prepared for the show, found a winning strategy and what she’s expecting from the upcoming Tournament of Champions.
  • Hear about her favorite questions, toughest moments and the most surprising elements about her experience on this popular, long-running show.
  • Discover her favorite, most interesting items in the Purdue University Archives and Special Collections.

You don’t want to miss this special episode with this Boilermaker “Jeopardy!” star.

Podcast Transcript

Adriana:

This is Adriana Harmeyer, Jeopardy! super champion, and you’re listening to This Is Purdue.

Kate:

Hi, I’m Kate Young and you are listening to This Is Purdue, the official podcast for Purdue University. As a Purdue alum and Indiana native, I know firsthand about the family of students and professors who are in it together, persistently pursuing and relentlessly rethinking. Who are the next game changers, difference makers, ceiling breakers, innovators? Who are these Boilermakers? Join me as we feature students, faculty and alumni, taking small steps toward their giant leaps and inspiring others to do the same.

Adriana:

It was so strange. We’ve seen it on TV. I know what the Jeopardy! set looks like, I know what to expect, but you just can’t quite be prepared for walking into that stage and seeing it and being in that space and then stepping up to a podium, writing your name on the little screen and there’s the board. It’s everything you would think it would be.

Kate:

In this episode of This Is Purdue, we’re talking to this clinical assistant professor, an archivist for university history at Purdue, who recently became a Jeopardy! super champion.

Who is Adriana Harmeyer? Do you recognize Adriana’s name from that little show called Jeopardy!? Adriana won 15 consecutive games and earned super champion status during her Jeopardy! run in May and June of 2024. She’s taking us all behind the scenes of America’s most popular game show, from the process of applying, the long shoot days, her buzzer strategy and everything in between. This Boilermaker had the persistence to turn her Jeopardy! dreams into a reality and became a super champion along the way. Here’s my conversation with Adriana.

We are so excited that you’re joining us on the official university podcast, This Is Purdue. Everyone has been talking about you, everyone has been rooting for you in the Boilermaker community throughout your Jeopardy! run, and we can’t wait to dig into your experience becoming a Jeopardy! super champion and also your journey at Purdue. So let’s start at the beginning. You’re a long time fan of Jeopardy!. Tell us a little bit about your introduction to the show and how your love for it blossomed throughout the years.

Adriana:

Sure. That’s a great question and I don’t really have an answer. I feel like probably common to many people, Jeopardy! has just always been there. It’s always on right after dinner, it’s a fun thing you can watch with the family. So I certainly was watching on occasion and aware of it before I would’ve been able to answer any of the questions on it. But then as I got older, I watched it, I was interested in it. I liked all kinds of trivia games. I had the Jeopardy! CD-ROM game, I had the handheld little electronic Jeopardy!. So it was just something I always enjoyed and something I could dream about doing someday myself.

Kate:

Okay, so you dreamt about it and then you made it happen. Let’s talk about that process of what initially inspired you to try out and what that process auditioning for Jeopardy! looks like.

Adriana:

Yeah, so when I was in high school, I was on the Quiz Bowl team, so that was my first real taste of buzzers and questions and fast thinking. I actually took the test for Team Jeopardy! a long time ago. I passed the test but wasn’t chosen to be on the show, and then I tried again in my 20s. I went in person and took the test for the regular show. Again, I passed it, but I wasn’t chosen. Turns out that’s very, very common for most people on Jeopardy! is most people don’t make it in on their first try because there are just so many people trying and taking the test. So finally, next time around, I took the online test, so they have an online anytime test, so you can just decide one day I’ll just take the test, see if I pass it, see what happens. And then I was invited to do an official test and then an audition after that. And then finally I got the call and I was invited to be on the show.

Kate:

Wow. Okay. So did you audition in person ever throughout this process?

Adriana:

The first couple times I took the test were in person, but this most recent time was all virtual, so they were hosted on Zoom.

Kate:

Throughout your history and your love of the show, did you ever have any super champions that you remember watching and really looked up to?

Adriana:

I think the big one that comes to mind is Ken Jennings. He was the first, he was the longest running, amazing scores. I think he really opened up what was possible. It was something that seemed potentially attainable and he had so much fun doing it. You could tell that he just enjoyed being there, and I think that’s a good way to approach it.

Kate:

Absolutely. And you talked about you kept trying, you were persistent in that pursuit to get on Jeopardy!. What made you keep trying and eventually attaining this goal?

Adriana:

Ultimately, I just really wanted to play the game. I wanted to try it. I enjoyed trivia, I liked Quiz Bowl when I was younger. It just seemed like it would be a really fun opportunity, a chance to challenge myself and to see if I was able to hold my own on that stage. So I just knew it was something to keep trying. I didn’t obsess over it. Just every few years I knew, oh, I could try again and see what happens.

Kate:

So you get there your first day. Walk us through what it was like seeing the iconic Jeopardy! set, stepping onto the Alex Trebek stage, meeting Ken Jennings for the first time. We just talked about him and his Jeopardy! run. What was that experience like?

Adriana:

It was so strange. We’ve seen it on TV, I know what the Jeopardy! set looks like, I know what to expect. But you just can’t quite be prepared for walking into that stage and seeing it and being in that space and then stepping up to a podium, writing your name on the little screen and there’s the board. It was amazing and it’s everything you would think it would be. Just a really cool thing to get to do.

Kate:

What was the prep work like? Did you pour over preparations? Were you frantically getting ready for this experience or were you just kind of going with the flow and seeing what would happen when you got there?

Adriana:

I watched a lot of Jeopardy! as I got ready. So once I knew I was going, I’d been watching it, of course, but I made sure every day I watched it. I went through the YouTube channel, so the Jeopardy! YouTube channel has just hundreds of clips from old shows, they have all the old Final Jeopardy!’s online. So I was able to go through those to test myself and see how I was doing, and if I came across something I wasn’t familiar with, that was a good chance to go read up a little bit and fill in some gaps in my knowledge. But mostly I was focused on making sure I knew how the game worked more so than trying to really cram facts, because that’s just such a hard thing to do, and I didn’t want to take any approach that might remove some of the fun from the experience.

Kate:

That’s actually a great strategy to know how the show works more so than trying to memorize facts.

Adriana:

Yeah, because everybody who makes it onto the show has passed the test, they’re brilliant, they know how to do this. It’s going to come down to understanding the types of wording they use and knowing how to use the buzzer.

Kate:

Absolutely. We’ll get into the buzzer. I’m excited about that. So we’ve talked about it, you’re a fan of the show. What was that experience like hearing the announcer, Johnny Gilbert, say your name for the first time on that stage?

Adriana:

I didn’t actually get to hear Johnny Gilbert say my name until it aired on television.

Kate:

Okay.

Adriana:

There was another person saying it that day in the studio. So it was really fun to hear it that day, but once it was on TV, I was watching it, all my family and friends are watching it. Yeah, Johnny Gilbert saying my name is one of those moments that really makes it a reality.

Kate:

So Adriana just shared a bit about the process of her applying and eventually getting on this long-running popular show and her strategy on how she prepared for her big debut. Now she’s diving into some behind the scenes details of filming. What was a typical day like for her during this incredible experience? You may be surprised at how many episodes of Jeopardy! are filmed in just one day.

Adriana:

The day starts very early, so I was on a three-hour time zone difference, which worked to my advantage when I had to wake up early, but it meant I was very tired by the end of the day. So I had to go in early, there’s a lot of preparation work, a lot of background information, a lot of spending time with the other contestants who are going to be filming that day. Rehearsal time, which is really, really nice to get a chance to practice with all of those different things. And then they usually film five episodes in a day, so it is-

Kate:

Oh my gosh.

Adriana:

A jam packed busy day.

Kate:

And how was that for your head space? Were you on a roll or did it get too exhausting? Did it depend on the day?

Adriana:

I think I definitely hit some sweet spots along the way, but by the end of the day, I think the last one I filmed each day I was there, I could really feel that exhaustion setting in, so I just had to really work to push through it.

Kate:

Was there a lot of caffeine involved? Any snacks? What was your strategy?

Adriana:

I’m a tea drinker, so I always had a big thermos of tea in the morning and maybe another one along the way through the day as well. There was a good supply of granola bars and mints and chocolates and enough stuff to keep us all going.

Kate:

What was it like kind of bonding with the other contestants? Was that something that you enjoyed or were you kind of just like, I want to get to the game, let’s play, let’s go.

Adriana:

Yeah, that was something that was so great and I hadn’t really thought much about that going in. I was so focused on the logistics of, and I’m going to go play Jeopardy!, what? But then you show up with all these other people who are also doing that and just so excited to be there and it’s just a group of people who are about to share an amazing experience that we’ve all been thinking about and preparing for and just all have a lot in common there and there is such an air of positivity there because we’re doing this really cool thing. We all know there’s a competition, people are going to win and people are going to lose, but so much of the focus was just on the experience and having a nice time with it and the whole production team was positive and encouraging as well, and they made it a really great environment.

Kate:

With those breaks, was it hard to get back into it or did you appreciate the breaks because five episodes a day had to have been grueling?

Adriana:

Yeah, there wasn’t always a lot of downtime and I think for the most part that was okay because I kept winning. I played the episode, it ended, I’m excited, I just won, but then I get to go change my clothes, have my hair and makeup touched up, maybe have a quick break, but then it’s right back out there again to do it again. So it was exciting though, not enough downtime to really stop and think about it, which is probably a good thing. But also luckily with a nice lunch break in the middle, so there was still time to have some space, make sure you’re feeling okay before going back out to do it again.

Kate:

That makes sense, because you’re on a roll, you’re winning, so you’re kind of in that head space.

Adriana:

Yeah.

Kate:

Was there a specific category that you felt really confident about? And then on the flip side, was there a category that might’ve worried you a little bit along the way?

Adriana:

I really like a lot of the wordplay categories. That’s probably not a surprise to anyone who watched me play. There was one in particular where you had to take two-letter words and combine them to make a new four-letter word. I thought that was really fun. But I also really liked anything to do with TV and movies. I always like to see those kinds of questions pop up as well.

The trickier ones. My very first game, there was a category called Louisiana Parishes, and that is not something that I have ever really studied or thought much about, but the great thing about Jeopardy! is they can put a category out there like that, but the clues have enough information in them that you can still answer them using other types of knowledge, and it turned out I did pretty well in that category after all. So you really do go out there with no idea what to expect.

Kate:

Yes. I emailed you last night, but I saw you popped up on my Instagram feed because you answered a question about rappers that were little rappers, and I thought that was so funny that you had the pop culture knowledge along with all of this other knowledge about Louisiana Parishes of all things. That’s fun.

Adriana:

Yeah, definitely things you can’t study for, things you can never prepare for that you just have to know from being a person.

Kate:

Absolutely. How hard was it to transition between categories so quickly and contextually switch the way that your brain is thinking?

Adriana:

It wasn’t too hard for me. I think it’s just something you expect to happen, and I am usually pretty good at being able to jump from thing to thing and always just try to make sure I knew what category we were in at the time because sometimes they’ll have quotation marks, so it starts with a certain letter or it has a certain phrase inside it. So I was trying to be mindful of things like that that could impact the answer.

Kate:

Adriana first appeared on Jeopardy! on May 29th, 2024 and won $26,000 during that first game. As the Inside Jeopardy! podcast mentioned, fans noticed right away that Adriana played the game the old-fashioned way, from the top down, taking a category in order. She discusses the goals she set before going on the show, how it felt to gain super champion status after winning 10 plus games of Jeopardy! and the reactions from her family, friends, and the Boilermaker community.

Going back, you won your first game. Did you have a goal in mind before that first game of, oh, it’d be great if I could win three, it’d be great if I could win five. Was there any type of goal?

Adriana:

I really hoped I could win one. I didn’t necessarily expect it, but I hoped that I could. I knew if I win five, I’m in the tournament of champions. If I win 10, I’m a super champion. If I win X number then I’m on this list and this list and this list. But I never went out on the stage with that in my mind because every single episode is its own challenge, and so I just wanted to not worry about that, not think about things like that and just have fun and do the best I could.

Kate:

You have the 11th longest win streak in show history, 15 straight wins. How does it feel to have that super champion status, and only 17 other champions in the show have achieved this. How does that feel a couple weeks off the show now.

Adriana:

It’s amazing. I still haven’t quite absorbed that that happened because it’s so unusual. So few people have done that. I’m honored that I can be part of that number of people who’ve done that and playing trivia and doing these kinds of things all my life, I always hoped that I might be capable of that, but it’s really nice to be able to prove to myself that I could do that.

Kate:

Did you have any celebrations when you came home with friends, family, Purdue community? Tell us about coming home and what that felt like.

Adriana:

I didn’t tell anybody until the shows aired. Not a single person, aside from my husband who was there with me in the audience, nobody else knew that I won. So a few people knew I went and I was going to be on the show, but I kept it completely secret about what happened.

Kate:

So on that note, you’re gone for a long time, especially as you kept winning. Where did people think that you were when you had to keep that secret?

Adriana:

So the first time I went, I was just gone for a couple days, so I just took a bit of time off work, a couple people knew about it. And then I had a few weeks before I had to go back, so I was able to make that trip just on vacation time.

Kate:

So you weren’t gone for like a month at a time?

Adriana:

No, it was just a few days on two different trips, so it wasn’t a big, noticeable absence.

Kate:

How do you think having the Jeopardy! super champion title will have a lasting impact on your life?

Adriana:

I don’t know yet. It’s still so new, but I’ve had a lot of people reaching out to me to just congratulate me. I’ve had some people interested in having me give talks or talk about the experience that I had, and that’s really great. But long-term, I don’t know. I think I still need to wait and see what that means for me.

Kate:

That’s fair. What has it been like with your family and your friends? How have they been reacting to your successful run?

Adriana:

So much excitement and positivity. All my family and friends who know me well know that I like trivia, this is something I wanted to do and are just so happy for me that I got to do it, let alone that I was able to win and keep playing for so long. Every night when the episode aired, I got all kinds of texts. “You did it again. This is so exciting.” “Oh, that was a close one.” So I know that my people were following along and really rooting for me, and that makes the experience even better.

Kate:

What has the reaction been like with the Purdue community and your family within Purdue?

Adriana:

So great. I had so many meetings that started with a bit of talk about Jeopardy! before we got into the business of the meeting, which is great. I appreciate how invested people are and how interested they are. It would be easy and understandable if people just said, oh, you did that thing, good job. Moving on. But people are genuinely interested and want to know more and ask questions about the experience and that’s been really nice. I’m glad that I could do that, I could have that experience and then still be able to share it with everyone as well.

Kate:

Yeah, I know in our marketing communications department, it was the talk of the town, get it on social media, we’re so proud of her, so that’s been really fun to witness too.

Adriana:

It’s been really nice.

Kate:

Thanks to her 15 consecutive wins, Adriana will be part of the annual Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, where previous champions come back to play each other for a grand prize of $250,000. Although she doesn’t yet know the timing of when this Tournament of Champions will be filmed, she discusses the work she’s doing now to prepare for this iconic tournament.

Adriana:

I’m very excited. I like to play Jeopardy! and I get to go do that again. So whatever happens, it’s exciting. I am preparing for it though. I know after playing as long as I did, I know my strengths and weaknesses, so I’m going to try to make sure I go back with more knowledge next time. Going to work on my buzzer skills, make sure that doesn’t go rusty, see if I can work on that a little more. I’m really excited to just get to do that again and try to have fun with it and meet all these other people that I’ve been watching on TV as they play Jeopardy!, I get to meet them and play with them as well, which will be great.

Kate:

Adriana reflects on what surprised her the most about her Jeopardy! experience.

Adriana:

I think it was just the positivity that I felt there from fellow contestants, from the crew, to the audience that was watching. I think it would be very easy for a game show where people win and lose to become really competitive or cutthroat, and I never got that feeling. And I think a lot of that comes down to just how much we all know Jeopardy! and care about it and how many people have watched it all their lives, that it’s just a really special thing.

Kate:

Adriana has been an archivist for Purdue history for over six years. She also serves as a clinical assistant professor. I asked how she thinks her role here at Purdue helped with her success on Jeopardy!.

Adriana:

Part of my job as an archivist is knowing a lot of little things about a lot of things, being able to help people from across the university. So one day I might have a question from an engineering student who’s trying to research something that happened on campus, and then I’m teaching a class about medieval manuscripts and everything in between. So in my job I get to experience a lot of variety and jumping from thing to thing, and I’d like to think that helps, not just with my knowledge base, but with keeping my brain sharp and able to do some of that pivoting that the show required when going through all those categories.

Kate:

You can tell that you’re very good at thinking on your feet. You have to be, right, with Jeopardy!?

Adriana:

You have to be, and I think if you have any significant experience teaching in the classroom, you also have to learn how to think on your feet and respond to the unexpected and take things as they are. It’s one of the joys of my job that I get to spend a lot of time in the classroom with students. Sometimes I teach them as the instructor, more often I’m visiting for a couple of class sessions to talk about research, to talk about the primary sources and rare books that are available in the archives, and it’s all about how to use those. It’s a different kind of research from a lot of what people are doing. It’s not just searching for an article in a database, it’s coming in person and deciphering this student’s diary from the 1880s and trying to analyze it. And I spent a lot of time just helping people understand how to get the most out of those materials that in a lot of cases maybe haven’t been studied deeply yet, and it can open up all kinds of exciting new research potentials for people.

I really love getting to watch students experience that for the first time, getting to see original materials that are a hundred years old and make that connection either to what they’re studying or to just what it’s like to be a student at Purdue throughout time.

Kate:

Adriana shares more about the ins and outs of Purdue Libraries and the Purdue Archives and Special Collections.

Adriana:

The Purdue Archives and Special Collections are part of Purdue Libraries. Our mission is to preserve, document and provide access to information related to the history of the university or to people at the university. So we have papers from faculty, from alumni, from offices and departments on campus. Anything you can imagine related to Purdue is something that you might find in the Purdue Archives.

We also specifically have a Flight and Space Exploration Archives, Women’s Archives and the Psychoactive Substances Research Collection, in addition to the Purdue History and the rare book collections that we have really to support teaching that’s happening at the university. So a really great variety. The kinds of materials we have are also really varied, so it might be documents, photographs, objects, perhaps more than people might expect when they hear the word archives, that there’s just a lot here that can support research but can also be just really interesting.

The archives are also available for anyone to come in and see things, they don’t have to be part of a class, they don’t have to be working on a project that the Purdue Archives are here for Purdue, for people to access and use. That’s why archives are kept. That’s why historical materials are kept is so people can use them.

Kate:

What is a typical day within your role look like at Purdue?

Adriana:

One great thing about my job is that there is rarely a typical day. So I might be teaching a class about doing research, I might be helping a researcher find very specific information they’re looking for. I might be talking to an office about transferring records into the archives. So everything in the archives has to get there somehow, and that’s part of what archivists do and any kind of combination of that work. Also describing the materials we have, describing them online so people can search for things and find what they’re looking for. Really, no two days are alike. The variety of collections and the variety of tasks to be done just keeps it interesting every day.

Kate:

What does this Boilermaker community and this spirit meant to you throughout your years at Purdue?

Adriana:

As the archivist for university history, I get to talk to a lot of people who love Purdue, who have spent most of their lives in the community here. I can really see how much that means to people. It is a special thing that I, as an archivist, get to preserve that and get to be part of that and get to learn about all of those stories about what makes Purdue unique, about all of the amazing people who’ve done groundbreaking work, who’ve come through Purdue. That’s just a really great thing to be able to learn about and to be able to share with these students who keep coming in.

Kate:

And speaking of Purdue archives and special collections, Adriana shares the top three most interesting items within this Boilermaker collection, plus she goes further behind the scenes of her Jeopardy! journey in this special rapid fire question segment.

Number one, I’m very curious about this. We’re talking about national TV here. Let’s get into the fashion. How many outfits did you bring?

Adriana:

I packed as much as I could fit into my carry-on suitcase.

Kate:

Did you mix and match a little then?

Adriana:

I did. There were clear guidelines about what works and what doesn’t work on camera. I spent a lot of time obsessing over my closet and just decided to bring as much as I could in case it didn’t all make the cut.

Kate:

Good strategy. Okay. Were you able to chat with other contestants during breaks?

Adriana:

Yes. We were all in the same area, so I got to spend a lot of time talking with the other contestants.

Kate:

How stressful is Final Jeopardy!? Does the time feel longer or shorter? How is that whole experience?

Adriana:

It depends entirely on whether I know the answer or not. Sometimes it popped up and I just immediately know what it is. Other times I have to stop and think about it more. Occasionally, I just had no idea. But that time goes by quickly.

Kate:

Which round was your favorite?

Adriana:

I liked the wordplay categories.

Kate:

What was your favorite question from throughout your run?

Adriana:

Oh, there are so many. There was one question, I don’t know if it’s my absolute favorite, but there was one question about an actor from the show the Three-Body Problem, and I had just watched that show the previous week, so it was very fresh in my memory. So that was good to feel like, oh, it was worthwhile that I was watching TV recently. I got an answer out of that.

Kate:

That’s awesome. What was your hardest question? Do you remember that?

Adriana:

The second Final Jeopardy! I had was about a bank in New York and I just didn’t know what it was. I just was not coming up with anything, made a guess, I didn’t have the right answer, but that’s one where I really felt like I just didn’t know.

Kate:

On that note, how do you decide how much to wager? What’s the strategy like there?

Adriana:

I was very lucky that most of the time I was in the lead going into the final, so I typically try to calculate. If the second place person bet everything, I bet enough to go beyond that.

Kate:

What was the feeling like to hit a daily double?

Adriana:

It was good and bad. It’s nice to get it because it’s a chance to increase winnings, but it’s also a risk because you might not get it right. So it’s a lot of very quick thinking and calculating about what to wager and how likely am I to get it and what do I know about this category. So it’s a bit nerve wracking.

Kate:

What was it like meeting Ken Jennings in real life?

Adriana:

Ken Jennings was so nice and welcoming. He came out and said hello to everyone at the beginning and just was really great throughout the show. It’s what you see on TV. He’s really engaging and he has just a really great approach to the show.

Kate:

You mentioned the buzzer a couple times. How fast do you need to click the button to secure the category? How hard is it to use that buzzer?

Adriana:

It’s so hard and it’s nerve wracking. You can’t buzz in too early or you’ll get locked out for a split second, but that can be enough for somebody else to get ahead of you. So there’s a lot of just watching and listening and the moment he stops talking, okay, try to get the timing right, but I don’t know that there’s a perfect way of doing it. If you watch the show, people can go on a run and get several in a row and then somebody else does that for a while, so it’s really tricky.

Kate:

Sure. It’s that thinking on your feet and then having to also press the buzzer.

Adriana:

Exactly. It’s not just a matter of knowing what the response is, it’s knowing the response and getting in on the buzzer. I knew a lot more questions than I answered because other people beat me to it on the buzzer.

Kate:

Did you practice your signature that would be placed on your podium beforehand?

Adriana:

No. I think I probably did as a teenager, but not recently, not right before I went. And I honestly wasn’t sure what was going to come out when I went up the first time and started writing it, but I locked onto something that worked pretty well for me.

Kate:

Did you enjoy the breaks where you had that time to chat with the other contestants and get to know them, or were you kind of itching to start playing again?

Adriana:

It was both. It was always nice to get to know the people, and that’s something maybe that doesn’t always come across when you watch the show is that these three people you’re seeing at podiums and answering clues have all been backstage together. They’ve met each other, they’ve chatted. So I like that I got to know everybody while I was there. The breaks just between episodes were really quick, so there wasn’t always a lot of downtime there, but just it was nice to be able to do that.

Kate:

Okay. Last question. Purdue Archives, what are your top three to five coolest items that you have in Purdue Archives that you’ve seen and explored? Amelia Earhart, Neil… Think any of those cool things?

Adriana:

The coolest things. Well, I think it’s all cool, and we do have those interesting things. One thing we have is John Purdue’s death mask, so that was like a plaster cast taken of him right after he passed, which was a very common thing in the 19th century kind of before photography was really common, but it’s really interesting and unusual. Orville Redenbacher’s bow ties, that’s just amazing. Everybody recognizes those. Some of them even have little popcorn symbols on them. And there are a few things in the Flight and Space collections that have been to space, which is something most archives don’t have and can’t say. So not one particular thing perhaps, but just the fact that we have these is really amazing, especially to have them in a place where they’re accessible. So I think those three answers also really showed the variety of what you might find in the archives.

Kate:

Absolutely. Those were some of the… I was not expecting some of those answers. Finally, Adriana shares her next giant leap with us. What would you say your next giant leap is, other than your next giant leap with Jeopardy!?

Adriana:

Yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing on my mind right now is that I have to go back to the tournament on Jeopardy!. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing in my job. I’m hoping to maybe do some more traveling over the next few years. But nothing too big, no big changes coming up. I think I’m in a pretty good spot.

Kate:

No guest host roles on Jeopardy! or anything yet?

Adriana:

Not that I know of.

Kate:

Well, we can’t thank you enough for joining us. It was a pleasure talking to you and thanks for sharing your journey. Is there anything else you think is important for our This Is Purdue listeners?

Adriana:

One last plug for the archives. I said it already. The archives are here for people, so any questions about Purdue, about the history, about anything here, about seeing interesting things, we want people to enjoy that, to see things, to be part of things. So we never want to be intimidating or out of reach. So we’re here part of the libraries, part of the community.

Kate:

Perfect. It was awesome talking to you and getting some behind the scenes look at your Jeopardy! run. Congratulations.

Adriana:

Thank you.

Kate:

It was so much fun catching up with Adriana after her incredible Jeopardy! run. Our podcast team put her to the test and asked her Purdue questions that actually aired on Jeopardy! throughout the years. Do you think you can answer them correctly? Head over to our This Is Purdue YouTube page and follow us on Instagram at LifeAtPurdue to see Adriana answer our very own This Is Purdue Jeopardy! game.

And remember, you can follow This is Purdue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Is Purdue is hosted and written by me, Kate Young. Our podcast videography for this episode was led by Ted Schellenberger. Our social media marketing is led by Maria Welch. Our podcast distribution strategy is led by Teresa Walker and Carly Eastman. Our podcast design is led by Caitlin Freville. Our podcast team manager is Rain Gu. Our podcast YouTube Promotions is managed by Kirsten Bowman. Additional writing assistance and research is led by Sophie Ritz. And our This Is Purdue intern is Caroline Kime. Thanks for listening to This Is Purdue. For more information on this episode, visit our website at purdue.edu/podcast. There you can head over to your favorite podcast app to subscribe and leave us a review. And as always, Boiler Up.