A Sit Down with Lawrenceville’s Jeopardy Star Jamie Ding!

Written by: Adam Tyberg (‘27)

On May 2, 2026, I had the opportunity to interview Jeopardy competitor and winner Jamie Ding. Jamie has lived in New Jersey since 2016 and moved to Lawrenceville in 2021. He first appeared on Jeopardy on March 13, 2026, when he began a historic 31-game winning streak, placing him in history as the fifth person of all time for consecutive wins and regular-season earnings on Jeopardy. Jamie’s streak came to an end on April 27, 2026, when Greg Shahade, a Philadelphia chess master, won in a runaway victory. 

 LHS student and Lawrencian staff writer Adam Tyberg taking a selfie with Jamie Ding!

Before becoming a Lawrenceville resident, Jamie lived in many different places both outside and within the United States. As Chinese immigrants from Beijing, China, Jamie’s parents first moved to Canberra, Australia, where Jamie was born. When Jamie was two years old, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and then four years later moved to Grosse Pointe, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit), where he grew up. After graduating from high school, he was admitted to Princeton University, where he majored in Molecular Biology. Upon graduating in 2013, he moved back to Grosse Pointe for three years before moving back to New Jersey. Currently, he works for the State of New Jersey as a bureaucrat and attends law school at Seton Hall on the weekends. 

Jamie stated that he always had a love for trivia. When asked how that developed, he said, “I've had a good memory for a very long time, and I guess I've always liked facts. [I tell people] that I used to be much more of a know-it-all. So I think even by second or third grade, it was kind of becoming known among my classmates that I was full of information.” Jamie’s earliest academic competition was “Name That Book” in elementary school. “It was fun. We never won, but it was a good time,” he said humorously. In middle school, Jamie started competing in the Geography Bee. He was very successful and advanced to the state competition in eighth grade. Jamie also began participating in the Spelling Bee in sixth grade, where he says, “I got second place my first year, and then I won it in seventh and eighth grade, and I went to nationals both times.” Jamie was also part of Math Counts, where he made it to nationals in eighth grade, which he remarks was “pretty surprising because I usually wasn't the best, but I had a good day that day at the state competition.” Jamie continued participating in competitive clubs in school, like Quiz Bowl, and at Princeton University, so he’s “known academic competition for a while.” 

Jamie Ding giving a big thumbs up to the camera! Credit to Sony Pictures Television.

When I asked Jamie how it feels to have become famous in our town and around the country, he said, “It feels pretty good. It's also weird [because], I mean, I go home, I feel like I'm the same person, you know, with all the same strengths and all the same flaws. Like, I procrastinate terribly, including on the dishes or using my fresh produce before it spoils. So the fact that all this is happening outside, while things seem pretty similar, you know, in my private life, it's an interesting adjustment to my position, but yeah, I'm enjoying it. People are always really super nice. And I mean, it's fun to get recognized in random places.” When I asked Jamie about his experiences meeting Governor Mikie Sherrill and going on Good Morning America, he said something that stuck with me: “It's nice to have a chance to tell your story.”

Jamie Ding winning big during Final Jeopardy! Credit to Sony Pictures Television.

Regarding his many appearances on Jeopardy, I asked Jamie what it is actually like being on stage with the audience, Ken Jennings (the host), and the other competitors. He said, “The stage is not very warm, so that's why I wore a lot of sweaters. You go out in the morning, and then it's just you and the crew, and you do a rehearsal, and everybody gets a chance to try out the buzzers. In front of one hundred fifty people, from where you're standing on your podium, you can't really see the audience unless you turn your head. If you're looking at the board, you're definitely not facing the audience at all. So at least for me, it was not too difficult to tune the audience out and just focus on the game.”

Jamie had a strategy when it came to buzzing in his answers. He shared that “It was listening to the sound of Ken's voice and trying to time my [button] press to when he said the last syllable. In my research when preparing for the show, I saw plenty of people writing [how] ‘the show tells you to follow the lights,’ but following the sound is better, and that at least was borne out in my experience. It helps that I'm a really fast reader and I’ve got a very quick recall. So usually, by the time [the category is called], before Ken finished reading the clue, I knew what I was going to say, if I was going to ring in, and then I could use the last part of his reading to try to anticipate the timing.” 

Jeopardy films its episodes between one and two months in advance. They film five episodes a day—so a week’s worth of episodes per day—but they typically only film twice a week. Jamie, however, ended up filming one group of episodes over three days in a row (11 episodes), a second group over four days in a row (20 episodes), and then one final day where he lost (one episode). Jamie explained that the order of a filming day begins with contestants arriving on set around 7:30 a.m., followed by about three hours of setup. Three episodes are then filmed between roughly 10:30 a.m. and lunch, and two more are filmed until about 5 p.m. I asked Jamie what he did after filming when he returned to his rental home. He said, “All I really did was go out to dinner maybe, or go back to the VRBO (rental home) and order dinner. Maybe try to answer some emails or do my daily games and then go to bed. Yeah, it's an exhausting day.”

In order to participate in the filming of Jeopardy, Jamie said that there was paperwork he had to sign, including an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). “We did sign something. I assume there is NDA language in there before coming to the studio. And then there's also an addendum when coming to the studio. There are a lot of other things in there, like, you know, if you're not a convicted felon, you haven't appeared on any other game show recently, you're not running for office, etc. And, I mean, since they don't pay you the money until after the episodes have aired, there's a pretty powerful incentive to stay quiet. The most amazing thing is that the audience does not get an NDA. They're just basically asked to keep the secret, and they're on the honor system, and it works—props to the audience members. It fills me with hope for America. We can trust each other. We [have to] be able to trust each other.” Jamie also told me that tickets for sitting in the audience are completely free, and he highly recommends attending because “It’s a great experience.”

When asked what he planned to do with his prize money, Jamie said, “I want to go see the eclipse of the century next summer. And then other than that, I'm going to buy some more orange stuff, take my parents to nice restaurants, put the money in a high-yield savings account, and then figure out the rest from there. And I do want to support certain causes and organizations that I care about because they need the money.”

In his free time, Jamie Ding and his younger sister, Jessie Ding, try General Tso’s Chicken from all over the world and review it on their Attorney General Tso’s Instagram page. When I asked him for his favorite local spot, he said it has to be either XiBei Cuisine in Princeton or Szechuan House in Hamilton. However, “the honest answer is often whichever one I had most recently is my favorite,” which is as true of an answer as you can get.

Thank you, Jamie Ding, for the interview opportunity. We can’t wait to see you competing in the Tournament of Champions this January. Once again, congratulations on all the success!