“An assistant professor from Storrs, Connecticut…..Kristen Ramsey.”

Those were the words of Johnny Gilbert, the famed announcer of Jeopardy!, on April 1 as the UConn molecular and cell biology assistant professor appeared on the game show. Ramsey finished second in her appearance and earned $8790, in addition to a lifetime of memories.

Ramsey, a native of Florida, is in her first year on the UConn faculty and focuses on structural biology, biochemistry and biophysics. She has lived all around the country, earning her undergraduate degree from Florida State, her doctorate from UC-San Diego, and did her post-doctorate work at Johns Hopkins.

UConn Today caught up with Ramsey following her Jeopardy! appearance.

First of all, how do you like teaching and working at UConn?

I fell in love with area when I came here for my interview. It’s really centrally located for me. It’s a rural campus, but I can get to Hartford, Boston, and New York. I have been here since August, and I am getting settled and getting my lab set up and starting to work with my graduate students. So, it has really been awesome.

How did your appearance on Jeopardy! happen?

I have been wanting and trying to get on Jeopardy! for many, many years. The process starts with an online test that anyone can take and is about 50 questions. You don’t find out how you did. If you do good enough, they contact you and you take another test on Zoom with video and eight other potential contestants and some show producers. They split you into groups of three, you use a pen as a buzzer, and you do a mock interview question.

After I did that part, I found out I was in the contestant pool, and you are in that for 18 months. If you don’t hear from them in 18 months, you start the whole process over. I took the online tests many times and in 2020, I got into the contestant pool, but never heard back.

I forgot about it for a while as I was doing my post-doc work. But last July, as I was getting ready to move out to Connecticut, I decided to take the online test again and two months later did the next online test.

In January, I got a call from a contestant producer, and they wanted to make sure I was not a convicted felon, didn’t have plans to run for public office in the next few years, and then he invited me to be on the show!

It was the most amazing thing, but also a bit terrifying!

When did you go out there to tape your show?

I was in California to tape the show on February 11. If I had won, I was going to have to go back on February 24 because of the taping schedule. I had to figure out my flight and hotel to Los Angeles quickly, that is all on the contestant. It was such a whirlwind.

Did you do much studying for the show?

My job here is pretty much all-encompassing, so I decided to rely on what got me to this point. The good thing is that the subjects I would have studied, my trivia weaknesses, did not come up in my show so I didn’t feel that bad.

So, for those that watch Jeopardy! at home and try to come up the answers, how much harder is it in real life?

It wasn’t so much that I found coming up with the answers as hard. The buzzer was the biggest difficulty. If another contestant is rock solid on the buzzer, it doesn’t matter if you know the answers because you’re just not going to beat them to buzz in.

Were you a trivia fan growing up?

I’ve always been into trivia and can’t remember a time that Jeopardy! wasn’t part of my life. My dad always tried to get on the show and both my parents are big fans. I like to go and do bar trivia, and I read a lot. I’m really curious about a lot of things and I end up going down a lot of rabbit holes when I am looking something up.