Eric Turner, a College of Arts and Science senior from Huntsville, Ala., will represent Vanderbilt in the 2014 Jeopardy! College Championship Feb. 10-21. Turner, who is majoring in neuroscience and history, is one of 15 students from universities across the United States competing for $100,000 and an automatic berth in the next Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.
To qualify for the College Championship, contestants had to complete a 50-question online test, and those who passed were selected at random to attend regional in-person auditions consisting of a second 50-question test, mock game play and a brief interview.
The complete contestant field is as follows:
- Laurie Beckoff, a sophomore at the University of Chicago (Chicago, Ill.), originally from Hollis Hills, N.Y.;
- Kenesha Bennett, a senior at Oakwood University (Huntsville, Ala.), originally from Huntsville, Ala.;
- Julia Clark, a senior at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.), originally from Saskatoon, SK, Canada;
- James Fulwiler, a junior at Temple University (Philadelphia, Pa.), originally from Baltimore, Md.;
- Ben Juster, a senior at the University of California–Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.), originally from Woodland Hills, Calif.;
- Maria Khrakovsky, a senior at Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio), originally from Columbus, Ohio;
- Cameron Kim, a senior at Duke University (Durham, N.C.), originally from Riverview, Fla.;
- Terry O’Shea, a sophomore at Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.), originally from Bridgewater, N.J.;
- Tucker Pope, a sophomore at Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas), originally from Lubbock, Texas;
- Kevin Shen, a junior at the University of California–Berkeley (Berkeley, Calif.), originally from San Jose, Calif.;
- Erika Sloan, a sophomore at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vt.), originally from Simsbury, Conn.;
- Sarah Stevens, a sophomore at the University of Delaware (Newark, Del.), originally from Dover, Del.;
- Alex Sventeckis, a senior at Ball State University (Muncie, Ind.), originally from Fishers, Ind.;
- Whitney Thompson, a junior at the University of Oklahoma (Norman, Okla.), originally from Tulsa, Okla.; and
- Eric Turner, a senior at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.), originally from Huntsville, Ala.
“The College Championship is one of the most competitive tournaments on our schedule,” said Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek in a press release. “Every Jeopardy! contestant plays to win, but our college contestants have an added level of motivation: school pride. Every one of them wants to represent their college well, and this extra motivation makes for fun and exciting game play.”
Jeopardy! airs locally at 6 p.m. weekdays on WUXP-TV. For air times and stations nationwide, visit the show’s website.