‘Jeopardy!’: 6 Facts to Know About Champion Jamie Ding

Jamie Ding has dominated Jeopardy! this month with runaway games and fast buzzer skills. But what else is there to know about him outside of the game show?

Ding has won $26,566 in two games so far. He made a huge wager in his second game that shocked fans, but still gave him the win.

The Jeopardy! champion is from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and is a law student and bureaucrat. Where is he studying, and what exactly is a bureaucrat? Find out if the luck of the Irish will be on his side on St. Patrick’s Day for his third game, but before that, here are six facts to know about Jamie Ding.

He is a Princeton graduate

Ding graduated from Princeton University in 2013. According to his LinkedIn, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology.

He honored his alma mater by wearing orange and black, his school colors, on the game show. “It has long been a dream of mine to wear orange (and black) on national television. In that regard, among others, the Jeopardy! experience was phenomenal,” he told Princeton.

Ding reviews General Tso’s chicken

On the game show, Ding revealed during the interview that he and his sister have an Instagram dedicated to their love of General Tso’s chicken. They review it at different restaurants and post them online.

“We started ordering it at every Chinese restaurant we would go to, and it became our measuring stick for the quality of the Chinese restaurant,” he told host Ken Jennings.

Even though he came up with the username @attorneygeneraltsos, he shared that his sister is the one who mostly runs it.

 

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He helps with your mortgage

Since 2021, Ding had worked at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency. He started out as a policy and programs analyst and is currently a multifamily and tax credit program administrator.

According to Oxford Learners Dictionary, a bureaucrat is “an official working in an organization or a government department, especially one who follows the rules of the department too strictly.” So, while he is not running the government, Ding does help people in New Jersey and works for his state.

Ding is currently studying law

Despite originally studying molecular biology, Ding wants to get into politics even more. He is currently studying law at Seton Hall University. According to a LinkedIn post, he is a weekend JD student at Seton Hall Law School.

The champion painted his childhood bedroom orange

 

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He wore black and orange to represent his school during his first game, but when Ding returned for game two, he wore orange again.

“What’s with the orange?” Jennings asked.

“My parents grew up in communist China. You didn’t get to make choices there,” he said. “So, my mom has never had a favorite color. When my neighbor asked me, ‘What’s your favorite color?’ She didn’t expect me to have one, but I said, ‘Orange!'”

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“Since then, my childhood bedroom, I made them paint it orange, every knick-knack. Since I got a disposable income, I’ve started buying orange things because I can. I rarely regret buying something just because it’s orange, but there’s a couch that I got from Amazon that was $80 that’s pretty bad. Maybe they make decent orange couches.”

“I can’t believe an $80 couch would not be top of the line, Jamie,” Jennings laughed.

Jamie Ding’s relationship status

Ding’s relationship status is unknown. He hasn’t talked about a significant other on the game show. He doesn’t appear to have a wedding ring on.