Newsmaker: Adriana Harmeyer
With total earnings of $426,600, Adriana Harmeyer, archives and special collections assistant professor and archivist for university history at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, is the winningest library professional ever to have appeared on the legendary game show Jeopardy! This Wednesday, May 14, she seeks to further cement that title, as she aims for the quarterfinals of the 2025 Jeopardy! Masters Tournament.
Harmeyer—who holds the 11th longest consecutive winning streak of any player on the show—spoke with American Libraries about her longtime love of the game, her least favorite category, and how she blazed her path to the Masters.
As an adolescent, you auditioned for the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and weren’t selected. And now you’re one of fewer than 20 Jeopardy! “super champions,” meaning players who have won 10 or more games.
Yeah, I’m okay with how it worked out.
How did you first get on the show?
Even as a kid, I always liked learning, and I always liked trivia. I had the Jeopardy! CD-ROM game, and I played it so often that over the years, I learned all of it.
Then one day I randomly decided to take the Anytime Test [to get on the show], which is available on the Jeopardy! website. I had no expectations, because thousands of people take this test every year. I got a high enough score that I was invited to an audition in June 2023, and then it was March 2024 when I got the call.
How did that initial game go?
I definitely struggled at first to get in on the buzzer. My friends and family were very anxious watching it because I just wasn’t getting to answer in the first 10 clues, even though I was trying. Over the course of that game, I kind of made my peace with the fact that this just might not work out for me. Then there was a wordplay category that really helped me, and a cookbook category. Of course, any kind of book category is going to be good for me. I started thinking, “Okay, I’m doing all right.” Only near the end did it even seem like a possibility that I could win. My first day, I won three games.
Then I had to come back in a month to tape again. That’s when I played 13 games in about 50 hours. The 13th one is when I lost. I was really tired; I know I wasn’t as sharp as I might have been two days earlier. I just had to accept that I’d been in this marathon and now it had come to an end. But I also knew that I could be proud of what I’d done, and I became a Jeopardy! super champion. I can’t complain about a thing, you know?
There’s a reason we see so many librarians and archivists on the show. I think we all just have a love of knowledge and learning, and it’s really exciting to have an outlet and a platform for that.
And then you got to go back for the Tournament of Champions, which aired in January and February of this year.
Yes, if you win five or more episodes, you’re guaranteed a slot. I had several months to prepare. I watched the show every day to see who the competition was going to be. I started doing a lot more reading, a lot broader reading, doing some flashcards. I found little niche areas I could stand to learn more about, like all the constitutional amendments, or classical composers. I learned a lot about sports. That is not one of my strengths, but I’m better at it now than I was.
How did your approach during the Tournament of Champions differ from that of your initial foray on the show?
In my original run, I didn’t really have a solid strategy around the gameplay at first. I just wanted to go in and play the game and have fun. As the gameplay intensified, I knew I had to be ready for other players who were going to be strategizing. There was a lot more attention to looking for the Daily Doubles and taking advantage of those. With the Daily Doubles, you’re trying to maximize your own winnings, but also, by getting it, you’re keeping it away from the other players. So even if it’s not your forte, at least you can guarantee nobody else is getting that shot.
[Regarding wagering], there are a lot of strategies depending on who’s in the lead, how far behind is second place, how far behind is third place, how confident you are in the category. My goal was always to try to have scores that didn’t require too much math.
I met my goal of making it to the finals, and I appreciated that. [After coming in as co-runner-up in the Tournament of Champions final], I assumed that going to the Master’s Tournament wasn’t going to be an option for me, but the producers decided to expand the field so that all three finalists from the Tournament of Champions would be there. That was a very pleasant surprise.
How does it feel to be the winningest library professional on Jeopardy!?
I am delighted and honored to have that title. There’s a reason we see so many librarians and archivists on the show. I think we all just have a love of knowledge and learning, and it’s really exciting to have an outlet and a platform for that. I wasn’t necessarily thinking going in that I might be a face of our profession, but I’m honored to have done that, and hopefully done it well.
What can you tell us, if anything, about your future on the show?
This is the end of tournament season for this year, so there will be downtime [for me] no matter what. I really enjoy being there, and I enjoy playing the game, but it’s also nice to not have it in the back of my mind. I can watch movies and read books because I want to, and not have a voice in my mind saying, “Oh, that might be something they ask about on Jeopardy!”
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