Donovan Bisbee Jeopardy Profile: Age, Job, Family, Stats

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

Donovan Bisbee Jeopardy Contestant Profile

Donovan Stuart Bisbee is an American communication studies professor and scholar based in the Portland, Oregon area, appearing on Jeopardy! Season 43 as a professor from Portland. His academic career specializes in rhetoric, public speaking, free speech, constitutional and legal communication, presidential rhetoric, visual communication and the relationship between the presidency and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bisbee currently teaches Communication Studies at Portland Community College (PCC), where he is listed as an instructor and has recently taught COMM 111Z: Public Speaking. His move to the Pacific Northwest also represents a return to the region where he grew up: Bisbee is originally from Ridgefield, Washington, immediately north of the Portland metropolitan area.

Before returning to the Pacific Northwest, Bisbee had an extensive academic career at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). At Baruch’s Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, he served as a Lecturer/Doctoral Lecturer and Director of Oral Communication Courses in the Department of Communication Studies. In that role he taught courses including Persuasion, Free Speech, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, Visual Rhetoric, and Communication, Law and Free Speech. He also directed the department’s oral communication curriculum, including COM 1010, COM 2020 and COM 3021.

His scholarly work examines how legal and constitutional arguments move beyond courts and become part of wider public and political discourse. A particular focus of his research has been conflicts between U.S. presidents and the judiciary over who possesses the authority to interpret the Constitution. His research consequently treats both the presidency and judiciary as rhetorical institutions, with historical work examining presidents including Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. His published scholarship includes research on FDR’s judiciary-focused Fireside Chat.

Bisbee earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, following an M.A. in Communication from the same university in 2014, concentrating on Rhetoric and Public Discourse and also completing a Writing Studies certificate. His doctoral dissertation dealt with conflicts between presidents and the judiciary concerning constitutional authority. During approximately six years of graduate study at Illinois, he taught seven undergraduate courses spanning public speaking, oral and written communication, business communication, persuasion, visual communication, and communication and law. He also served as a peer leader mentoring new instructors, developing teaching materials and assisting with teaching orientation.

His teaching record at Illinois was particularly extensive. Bisbee appeared on the university’s List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent during every semester in which he was eligible, with several semesters receiving the higher “outstanding” distinction placing him among the top 10%. He earned both the university’s Graduate Teacher Certificate in 2014 and Teacher-Scholar Certificate in 2016. From 2016 to 2018, he was also a graduate affiliate with Illinois’s Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, designing and presenting workshops, observing and consulting with graduate instructors, and helping with an orientation program preparing more than 700 new teachers annually.

Before Illinois, Bisbee attended Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, graduating in 2012 with a B.A. in Rhetoric and English. His interest in argument, law and rhetoric was already evident as an undergraduate. He won Wabash’s 2010 Moot Court Top Advocate Award, an advocacy competition requiring students to research legal precedents and present arguments before judges. He also conducted academic research with Professor Todd McDorman, co-authoring work examining Armando Galarraga, umpire Jim Joyce and the famous near-perfect baseball game, which they presented at a Communication and Sport conference in 2012.

Bisbee was selected as one of only two student speakers at Wabash College’s 2012 commencement, where he addressed his graduating class. His speech reflected on his experiences at Wabash and encouraged classmates to “live passionately, laugh openly, and let go.” His selection as a commencement speaker capped an undergraduate experience that led directly into his graduate studies and eventual academic career.

Contestant Image Credit: Jeopardy Official Website

Donovan Bisbee Jeopardy Results