Local teen 'Jeopardy' champ donates more than $10K to OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute

PORTLAND, Ore. – It appears we haven’t heard the last from local “Jeopardy!” teen tournament champion Avi Gupta.

Monday afternoon, he donated a portion of his $100,000 winnings to pancreatic cancer research at OHSU. He said the decision is personal on two levels.

Gupta wanted to give to pancreatic cancer research to honor “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek in his battle with the disease.

“A few months ago, I donated $314 because I hadn’t gotten the ‘Jeopardy!’ winnings yet. But now that I have those, I’m able to give the full amount,” Gupta said.

He said 314 is a number significant to him because it’s the first three digits of pi.

“To me, it represents my lifelong love of learning and mathematics that eventually led me to appear on ‘Jeopardy!’ and has propelled what I’ve been doing ever since,” Gupta said.

Gupta graduated from Portland’s Gatlin Gabel School in June. He’s now studying at Columbia University in New York.