Emily Burnham Jeopardy Profile: Age, Job, Family, Stats

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

Emily Burnham Jeopardy Contestant Profile

Emily Stoddard Burnham is an American writer, editor, journalist, author and communications professional based in Bangor, Maine, appearing on Jeopardy! Season 43 as a writer and editor. A Maine native who grew up in the Searsport/Waldo County area, Burnham has spent roughly two decades living in Bangor and has built much of her career around documenting the culture, history, people, food, music and unusual stories of Maine.

Burnham is particularly well known for her long tenure with the Bangor Daily News (BDN). Beginning in 2008, she spent more than two decades with the newspaper as a writer and editor, becoming one of its prominent arts and culture journalists. Her reporting covered a remarkably broad beat encompassing arts, music, theater, nightlife, restaurants, food trends, television, film, pop culture, local history, social issues, businesses and interesting people throughout Maine. Although her work was statewide, she frequently concentrated on Bangor, Midcoast Maine and Downeast Maine.

Her BDN work included regular columns about Maine bands and weekend events, alongside longer features exploring local history and culture. Over the years, she wrote about subjects ranging from Stephen King’s Carrie and the history of Bangor neighborhoods to Maine accents, regional pizza styles, musicians, restaurants, unusual traditions and forgotten episodes of Maine history. Her journalism earned recognition from the Maine Press Association, including first place for an Arts/Lifestyle Feature in its 2011 awards and third place in the Critic’s Award category.

Burnham left her longtime full-time BDN role in 2025 and became self-employed, working as a freelance writer, editor, grant writer, fundraiser and communications professional. She has more than 20 years of media experience and also works in social media, brand messaging, website management and video editing, with additional experience across radio, television and podcasts. Her writing has appeared beyond the BDN in publications including USA Today, Boston Magazine, Maine Magazine, the Portland Phoenix and Maine Alumni Magazine.

She also writes and edits The Other Maine, a newsletter devoted to Maine’s culture, people and communities. The publication features her own articles, interviews, essays and features as well as contributions from other Maine writers and a roundup of events in eastern Maine.

Burnham is also a published author. Her book Downtown, Up River: Bangor in the 1970s, published by Islandport Press in October 2023, uses more than 150 archival photographs to explore Bangor during the enormous physical, economic and cultural changes of the late 1960s through the early 1980s. The book examines such developments as urban renewal, the decline of the traditional downtown, the rise of big-box retail and the Bangor Mall, counterculture and the city’s attempts to reconcile modernization with its historic identity. It received a 2024 Maine Literary Award for Excellence in Publishing and was also a 2024 Foreword INDIES finalist.

Burnham graduated from the University of Maine, where she was active in several student organizations. Her university activities included WMEB, the university’s student-run radio station; The Maine Campus, its student newspaper; Maine Review; Wilde Stein; the Student Women’s Association; and the Progressive Student Alliance. She also has knowledge of French.

Her appearance on Jeopardy! represents the culmination of a longstanding enthusiasm for trivia. Burnham grew up in what she has described as a “total Jeopardy! family,” and her mother had previously auditioned for the program. Burnham herself took the show’s Anytime Test many times before finally progressing through the contestant process in 2026. After completing a group test and Zoom audition, she received the call from Sony Pictures Entertainment in early July and flew to California in August to tape her episode. She described the experience as one of the best things she had ever done. She had additional trivia experience before the show, including hosting local trivia nights at Paddy Murphy’s in Bangor, and has said she reads encyclopedias for fun.

Burnham lives in a roughly 160-year-old house in Bangor with her husband, Zach, as well as their dog and cat. Her personal and professional identities are closely tied to Maine: she describes herself as a Maine native and proud Bangorian, while her writing frequently examines the state’s distinctive communities and the ways its history continues to shape modern Maine.

Contestant Image Credit: Jeopardy Official Website

Emily Burnham Jeopardy Results