Katie Bruns Jeopardy Profile: Age, Job, Family, Stats

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

Katie Bruns Jeopardy Contestant Profile

Katie Bruns is a records and information professional from Dayton, Ohio, who appeared as a contestant on the September 28, 2026 episode of Jeopardy!. She was 34 years old at the time of her appearance and is originally from Coldwater, Ohio, where she grew up and graduated from Coldwater High School in 2010.

Bruns works as a Record Center Technician with the Montgomery County Records Center and Archives. Her career is in records and information management, with her work involving government records and archival materials. Jeopardy! describes her occupation more broadly as a Records & Information Professional.

Her educational background combines English with library and information science. After graduating from Coldwater High School in 2010, Bruns attended the University of Dayton, earning a bachelor’s degree in English. She later attended Kent State University, where she earned a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science (MLIS). Her studies in English and information science ultimately complement her professional work with records, archives and information management.

Bruns grew up watching game shows and has been a longtime Jeopardy! fan. Watching Jeopardy!* and *Wheel of Fortune after dinner was a family tradition, and she remembers sitting on the living-room floor at her grandparents’ house to watch the shows. Her trivia strengths and interests include literature, vocabulary and history, while musicals would be one of her ideal Jeopardy! categories.

Her journey to Jeopardy! began when she took the show’s Anytime Test in June 2026. She subsequently advanced through a two-part virtual audition process and learned in late July 2026 that she had been selected as a contestant. She travelled to Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, where her episode was taped on August 26, 2026.

Bruns kept her preparation relatively relaxed rather than attempting to study every possible subject in the short period before filming. She played trivia games on her phone, concentrated on areas she already knew well and watched numerous episodes of Jeopardy!. She also practiced buzzer timing with a clicky pen and rehearsed giving responses aloud in the show’s required question format.

At the studio, Bruns and the other contestants rehearsed using the actual signaling devices and learned how precise buzzer timing needed to be. She also spent time with her fellow contestants in the green room, where they got to know one another and practiced the personal anecdotes they could potentially discuss with Ken Jennings during the contestant interviews.

Bruns approached the actual competition with the goal of enjoying an experience she had dreamed about as a longtime fan. When the categories were revealed, she identified subjects that played to her strengths while being more cautious with areas outside them. She did not plan to make aggressively searching for Daily Doubles a central part of her strategy.

Her family and friends travelled to California and attended the taping, giving Bruns a familiar support group in the studio audience. Her mother, Laura Bruns, has also had a notable public-service career in Ohio as a former director of the Mercer County Board of Elections.

Contestant Image Credit: Jeopardy Official Website

Katie Bruns Jeopardy Results