Name Alexander Guttenplan | ||
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Education Westminster School, Emmanuel College, Cambridge | ||
University Challenge - 2010 Final Guttenplan Spoof
Alexander Guttenplan (born 8 June 1990) is a student primarily known as the captain of the team that won University Challenge in 2010, scoring 315 points to 100 against St John's College, Oxford, in the final. His performance in this has been compared with that of Gail Trimble. He also "got the better" of presenter Jeremy Paxman, in an exchange which became an Internet sensation. He has hundreds of fans who call themselves Guttenfans: "Guys want to be him, girls want to be with him!". He also took part in a special edition of Only Connect, leading a team from University Challenge against the champions of the first series of Only Connect, the Crossworders. In September 2017, Guttenplan appeared as part of "Team Emma" on Eggheads.
He is currently pursuing a PhD at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Guttenplan is of Jewish and Greek ancestry. His father is of U.S. Jewish origin, and mother from Greece: both are writers, D. D. Guttenplan and Maria Margaronis. He has two siblings. He was educated at the Hall School Hampstead and Westminster School, where he showed prodigious talent in a school quiz at the age of eleven. His hobbies include ceilidh, sailing, rowing, science fiction and browsing Wikipedia. He was chairbeing of the Cambridge University Science Fiction Society.
