“I feel elated to be a part of British quizzing history and grateful that our team had the opportunity to clinch the title while representing Imperial,” says Sourajit Debnath, the Indian on the winning Imperial College London team of television’s toughest quiz tournament.
Debnath, an Algorithm Developer at S-Cube – an Imperial College London spin-off, answered a volley of tough questions for his team to win ‘University Challenge’ this month. Imperial is now the most successful team in the iconic BBC show’s history, with their 2024 triumph following wins in 1996, 2001, 2020 and 2022. In preparation for ‘University Challenge’, the team spent months revising their specialist subjects and practising quizzes as a close-knit group. Debnath credited the “unparallelled mentorship” and expertise of previous teams, as representatives from past seasons take part in Imperial's mentoring programme for the competition.
To reach this year’s final, the team beat Trinity College, University of Cambridge, in the semi-finals and overcame other teams including the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield in the popular quiz show hosted by British Indian presenter Amol Rajan.
“Their breadth of knowledge well beyond science is truly impressive, and their disciplined approach to the quiz has made history for Imperial as University Challenge’s most successful team,” said Imperial’s Provost Professor Ian Walmsley of the team.
The team’s 31-year-old quiz champion from Kolkata has recently completed a Master’s in Applied Computational Science and Engineering at Imperial College London and is now pursuing a career in computational science.
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How does it feel to hit such a milestone?
I feel overjoyed to be on the national stage representing Imperial. I feel proud to be on the same team as my extremely smart teammates. And I feel honoured to have been given a chance to be a part of the history of this long-running British institution.
What do you feel have been your strengths in this competition?
Imperial’s team is unusually well-rounded this year and each teammate has their own selection of niches (or specialisms, to borrow from quiz parlance). All other things being equal, I’m responsible for covering maths, physics, and general science, along with pop culture on the humanities side.
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Give us some insights into your academic field and future plans.
I was studying for a Master’s degree in Applied Computational Science and Engineering at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering. I chose this degree to pivot to a career in computational science. After my graduation from Imperial, I’ve joined an Imperial start-up focused on geophysics algorithms operating out of the Royal School of Mines.
In India, I was a space scientist at U.R. Rao Space Centre at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the spacecraft-making arm of the Indian space agency, where I worked on the 2019 Indian lunar lander/rover mission called ‘Chandrayaan-2’, among other spacecraft.