The newest Jeopardy! champion

My favourite game show has a new super champion.  As of Friday April 17th, he has won 26 consecutive games and he looks unbeatable.  His name is Jamie Ding and he resides in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.  Jamie  made his first appearance on Jeopardy! on March 13, 2026.  

On the Friday April 17th episode of the show, he defeated a fellow New Jerseyan, Taotao Zhang, a statistician from South River, as well as Tini Howard, a comic book writer from Van Nuys, California.  With that victory, he increased his total winnings to $732,000.

Jamie graduated from Princeton, University in 2013.  According to his Linkedin site, he earned a bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology.  As a tribute to his alma mater, Jamie wore orange and black, his school colours, on the show.  it has long been a dream of his to wear orange (and black) on national television." he told Princeton.  "In that regard, the Jeopardy! experience was phenomenal."

A public service professional, Jamie currently works in housing policy and government administration.  Since May of 2025, he has served as a Multifamily and Tax Credit Program administrator at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.  But Jamie is not only a bureaucrat.  He is also a law student at New Jersey's Seton Hall University.  Seaton's weekend J.D. program allows students who work full-time to attend classes on Saturdays and Sundays.

Jamie Ding

Jamie's parents are originally from Beijing, where his father, Yuchuan was a cometic surgeon.  Yuchman and his wife, Ning Yan, left China after political violence broke out in Tiananmen Square in 1989.  They moved to Australia, where Jamie was born in 1991.  Jamie has a younger sister, Jessie Ding, now 30 years old.  

After Yuchuan earned his doctorate in Australia, the family moved to Tennessee, where Yuchuan  was a research fellow at Vanderbilt University, while Ning Yan served as a child care worker.  In 1998, the Dings, relocated to Michigan.  Dr. Ding worked at Wayne State University, where he is now a professor of neurosurgery.   He is an internationally renowned expert in stroke therapy, traumatic brain injury, and thermal injury research.  Jamie's mother, Ning Yang worked in the Detroit public school system, where she taught mathematics at Cass Technical High School.  She is now retired.

Dr. Yuchuan Ding

 

Jamie's family is thrilled about his success on Jeopardy!  According to his mother, he "started reading at the age of three, and we provided him with all the possible materials we could.  He's always been very curious about everything."  The Dings have been watching Jamie every night from their home in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where Jamie and Jessie attended elementary and high school.  "Friends, family, everybody, classmates . . . tell us they are watching," said Ning Yan.

If he continues his winning ways, Jamie Ding is on course to be one of the greatest champions in the history of Jeopardy!  With his earnings of $732,000, Jamie is approaching sixth place on the regular-season money  list, behind another New Jerseyan, Cris Panullo of Ocean City, who amassed $748,286 while winning 21 games in 2022.  Ding remains in fifth place on the all-time consecutive win list. behind James Holzhauer, who won 32 games in 2019.   He is currently in the 11th spot on the all-time money list (including tournaments, but he is still a long way from Ken Jenning's 74 consecutive game run in 2004.

Nevertheless, It will be fun to see how far Jamie can go on Jeopardy!  With his likeable personality and easy manner, he is quickly winning over fans of the show.

SOURCES: Jeopardy!Fan.com; AOL, "Jamie Ding tops fellow New Jerseyan to win 26th on 'Jeopardy!'" by Jon Connolly, April 17, 2026; The Detroit News, "Who is Jamie Ding? 'Jeopardy! champ amazes his Grosse Pointe family," by Max Reinhart, April 17, 2026; Wikipedia

- Joanne