Duke GIM Assistant Professor of Medicine, Dr. Suchita Sata, grew up watching Jeopardy! every night and always wanted to be on the show. She achieved that dream in 2008 when she was a contestant on Jeopardy! College Championship, representing her undergraduate school - The University of Wisconsin. She lost in the semifinals back then and has been itching for the chance to re-prove her trivia chops ever since.
When she began her career at Duke in 2015, Dr. Sata and her husband started going to pub trivia competitions as a way to get to know the Triangle and make new friends. Pre-pandemic they would go every Monday night. When COVID hit and they stopped going out, she began getting her trivia fix by watching The Chase on ABC.
“I’m pretty competitive, and I like the idea of free money, so I started auditioning when they put out the call for new contestants,” explains Sata.
She was excited to be selected as a contestant on the show this season. Her episode aired May 10 on ABC, and (spoiler alert) she beat her “chaser”, James Holzhauer. Sata and another contestant, Emily, took home a combined $70,000 in winnings.
Holzhauer is one of the all-time winningest contestants on Jeopardy!.
"I’m still stupefied that our team beat one of the biggest names in trivia!"
“It is so hard to win money on The Chase, and I’m still stupefied that our team beat one of the biggest names in trivia,” says Sata.
So, what is she going to do with her winnings? Sata hopes to put the money towards a massive library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, similar to the ones you see in the movie Beauty and the Beast.
According to Sata, there’s “no better way to get better at trivia than reading more!”
Photos courtesy of ABC's The Chase