Second-year PhD student Ryan Kang is the captain of the Trinity College team on this year's University Challenge.
Despite narrowly losing the opening game of the series against Manchester on a tie break, Ryan has led the Trinity team to the quarterfinals, after an emphatic win over Southampton in the highest scoring losers’ play-off followed by an impressive performance against Warwick in the second round.
Ryan completed his undergrad in Natural Sciences here, specialising in chemistry in his third year. He was awarded the Winifred Georgina Holgate-Pollard Memorial Prize for the most outstanding performance in Part II Chemistry, before taking an integrated master’s degree under the supervision of Dr Pietro Sormanni, for which he received the Raphael prize for distinction in organic chemistry. Ryan is now a Gates scholar in Professor Matthew Gaunt’s research group, working on the synthesis of amines.
Starter for ten
This year Amol Rajan is presenting the programme for the first time, having taken over from Jeremy Paxman, who retired after 28 years at the helm. In fact, Trinity College was the first team to introduce themselves on this new era of University Challenge and answered Amol’s very first starter of the series. “He’s very open and friendly.” says Ryan about Amol, “He would come to chat to us beforehand in the dressing room, and liked to discuss some of the questions after the filming.”
Ryan says all the production crew were accommodating and worked hard to make the teams feel comfortable. “They knew we had never been on TV before and tried to make us feel calm. All of us were feeling quite nervous that we wouldn’t be able to answer a single question, or we would just freeze up after we had buzzed. Although the pre-match nerves did get better after a few games, I don’t think they ever went away – they certainly didn’t for me!"
Ryan Kang, below
Ryan an
d his teammates prepared for University Challenge by doing pub quizzes, practice matches by themselves and with other teams from the show, as well as competing in the Cambridge intercollegiate quiz which they won in May. “It’s lovely that we get along really well because we were spending a lot of time preparing together. Sometimes, it was a challenge fitting the practise sessions and matches, and the filming for the show around lab work, but doing it with friends who were all just as passionate made it worth the effort.”
Lucky mascot
Almost all the teams that appear on University Challenge bring along a team mascot, and Trinity was no exception. “As the captain, I was given the incredible responsibility of picking a mascot and actually remembering to bring it to the show! I was going through my childhood stuffed toys at home, but when I saw my stuffed rabbit with its smile and little ribbon, I knew immediately I’d found our lucky mascot.”
Watch this space
You’ll have to watch the rest of the series to find out if the lucky mascot did indeed work. The series is on BBC 2 on Mondays at 8:30 pm and Trinity College’s first quarterfinal match will be in early 2024.