Daniel Ransom Jeopardy Profile: Age, Job, Family, Stats

Find out all the Jeopardy! results for Daniel Ransom, including games played, scores and competitors.

Daniel Ransom Jeopardy Contestant Profile

Daniel Ransom is an academic librarian and information-literacy specialist based in San Francisco, California, with more than 15 years of experience helping students and faculty find, evaluate and use information effectively. He appears on Jeopardy! as a contestant from San Francisco, where his occupation is simply given as librarian, although his professional career encompasses library instruction, research services, electronic resources, pedagogy and academic-library leadership.

For much of his recent career, Ransom has worked at the California College of the Arts (CCA) in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has served there as an Instructional Services Librarian, with responsibility for teaching students how to locate and critically engage with information resources. His work goes beyond providing research assistance: he collaborates directly with faculty members as a pedagogical partner, helping design instruction sessions, assignments and strategies intended to improve student learning and information literacy.

Ransom’s approach to librarianship places a strong emphasis on critical thinking and information literacy, particularly the skills people need to navigate an increasingly digital information environment. At CCA, he has overseen or contributed to library instruction, research consultations and the development of teaching materials. His work supports students across a wide range of creative and academic disciplines, including architecture, graphic design, illustration, industrial design, contemporary art, archival research, geographic information systems and graduate design programs.

His responsibilities at CCA have also included maintaining and creating numerous subject and research guides. These have covered topics such as architecture, archives and archival research, citation using MLA and Chicago styles, the CCA thesis collection, contemporary art of the Arab world, Design MBA research, GIS, graphic design, illustration and industrial design. This reflects both his broad research knowledge and the unusual challenge of providing academic-library services at an art and design institution.

In September 2026, Ransom’s career entered a new phase when it was announced that he would leave California College of the Arts at the end of the month to join Santa Clara University Library as Head of Instruction Services. The position represents a move into a more senior instructional leadership role, building on many years of experience in research assistance, library teaching and information-literacy program development.

Before joining CCA, Ransom worked at Holy Names University in Oakland, California, where he was Librarian for Research and Electronic Resources at the Paul J. Cushing Library. In that position, he provided reference and research assistance, delivered information-literacy instruction and managed electronic resources. His responsibilities therefore combined direct student services with the technical and collection-management side of contemporary academic librarianship.

Ransom became particularly active in the wider library profession during his time at Holy Names University. In 2014, he was selected for the American Library Association’s Emerging Leaders program, a nationally oriented professional-development initiative for newer library professionals. As part of the 2014 Emerging Leaders class, he worked on a project examining how a division of the American Library Association could improve its use of social media to engage members and develop future professional leaders.

His Emerging Leaders profile provides a glimpse of his philosophy of librarianship. Ransom described instruction and reference as his primary information specialties and said that his motivation for becoming a librarian was fundamentally a desire to help people. He expressed an interest in making information resources easier to use and more accessible. His professional interests have consistently combined practical library service with larger questions about how people locate, understand and assess information.

Ransom has also been involved with the American Library Association and the Association of College & Research Libraries for many years. He has participated professionally in California Academic & Research Libraries, including service connected with its conference scholarship activities. His professional-development experience has included the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Immersion Program, an intensive program centered on information-literacy instruction and educational practice.

His accomplishments at Holy Names University included receiving an SNJM Award in 2014. He has also taken part in professional conferences and discussions about academic-library teaching, leadership and critical librarianship. One of his conference presentations examined how lessons from library history could be applied to emerging approaches to information literacy, illustrating an interest that extends beyond the day-to-day operation of a library into the historical and theoretical development of the profession.

Ransom’s educational background combines history, theater and library science. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Arts and History from the University of California, Santa Cruz, studying there from approximately 1995 to 1999. He later attended San José State University from 2007 to 2009, earning his Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS). That graduate qualification prepared him for his subsequent career in academic librarianship, research instruction and electronic-resource management.

Before or during the early stages of his professional library career, Ransom also completed an internship in the Reference Department at the University of San Francisco’s Gleeson Library. Colleagues there praised his ability to teach library skills to university classes as well as his intelligence, enthusiasm, humor and thoughtful approach to librarianship. The internship helped establish the instructional focus that became a defining feature of his career.

Ransom also writes about pedagogy and library history. He maintains or contributes to a site called The Pinakes, whose name comes from the ancient Greek catalog associated with the Library of Alexandria. His interest in the ancient library tradition goes further: when once asked to name a personal hero, he chose Callimachus, the scholar traditionally associated with organizing the great Library of Alexandria’s collections.

He has also contributed writing about professional development and networking within librarianship. In one piece, Ransom compared professional networking to competitive cycling, encouraging younger librarians to develop mutually supportive relationships with peers rather than viewing networking simply as a way of approaching senior figures. The analogy drew on one of his own major interests: cycling.

Sport has played a significant part in Ransom’s life. He has said that he spent more than a decade playing rugby, an activity that left him with several scars. Cycling is another longstanding enthusiasm; in a lighthearted professional profile, he named burritos and bikes among his favorite things. These interests provide a more personal counterpoint to an otherwise strongly academic and professionally focused public profile.

Overall, Ransom’s career has been centered on helping people find information, evaluate it critically and use it effectively. From early reference work and electronic-resource management at Holy Names University through information-literacy leadership at California College of the Arts and his move to Santa Clara University, his work has consistently combined teaching, research support, technology and educational theory.

Contestant Image Credit: Jeopardy Official Website

Daniel Ransom Jeopardy Results