GENEVIEVE Sheehan competed on Jeopardy! before she married champion Troy Meyer.
Now, game show fans want to know more about the former Jeopardy! contestant and her marriage.
Who is Genevieve Sheehan?
In the 1980s, Genevieve Sheehan emigrated from Ireland to Canada and then to the US with her family, per the New York Times.
They settled in Tampa, Florida, and "adopted the American pastime of watching 'Jeopardy!' together every evening."
According to her LinkedIn profile, she received her bachelor's degree in social studies from Harvard University, where she studied from 2001 to 2005.
Are there illegal baby names? Surprising monikers that are BANNED in other countries, from Sarah to Thomas
She later earned her MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School, graduating in the top 5% of her class in 2012.
Sheehan previously pursued a career in the finance industry.
According to her LinkedIn, she worked as a senior associate consultant and associate consultant for Bain & Company from September 2005 to August 2008, and as an associate in North American private equity for Bain Capital from September 2008 to August 2010.
From May to August 2011, she was a product manager intern for Zynga before working as the company's senior product manager from July 2012 to January 2014.
Sheehan then worked as the senior director of product management at Dropbox from January 2014 to May 2020 and as the vice president of settlement services at Snapdocs from April 2021 to April 2022.
Since June 2022, she has served as the vice president of product and the general manager of Confluence at Atlassian.
How did they meet?
Sheehan and Troy Meyer met through a Jeopardy! "invitation-only online fan site," when they were both 27 years old, per the New York Times.
According to Sheean, the site was for "like-minded addicts" of the hit television program.
Sheehan — an aspiring Jeopardy! contestant at the time — joined the site in early 2009, and Meyer "gradually noticed in Ms. Sheehan someone who, like himself, treasured knowledge for its own sake."
"I was initially intrigued by how good she was," Meyer told the outlet.
All about Rachel Nickell who was murdered in front of her son Alex Hanscombe
Meyer also tried to recruit Sheehan to what she called an "even more dorky" site for Jeopardy! fans.
She accepted the invitation "because she wanted to practice before going on the show," the publication stated.
In July of that year, they played their first game online, and Sheehan won.
Sheehan told the New York Times that online competitors frequently communicate while playing, and she and Meyer started exchanging messages.
However, Sheehan was in a relationship at the time, and "neither of us was looking for anything," she said.
She and Meyer said that the fan sites are not meant for dating and are often used by older people.
"I had no idea. I thought she was 55 years old," Meyer said.
The pair continued to talk online, and their conversations became longer and more personal.
"We started talking about the type of art we liked, our daily routines," Sheehan shared with the outlet.
"We were really part of each other’s lives," she added.
Meyer said the attraction of "talking to someone who was so bright" drew him closer to Sheehan, though he said meeting online "felt weird."
"It felt weird, the whole Internet aspect to this. And she was in a relationship," he said.
"I talked to friends, and they thought I was absolutely nuts."
Meyer did not know anything about Sheehan's physical appearance until she competed on Jeopardy! in October 2009, and he thought she was beautiful, per the publication.
"By then she was out of her previous romance, which Ms. Sheehan said had ended, in part, because of her growing interest in Mr. Meyer," The New York Times stated.
At that point, she had only seen Meyer in "old and blurry" pictures.
"We felt we really needed to see each other in person," Sheehan said.
Sheehan lived in Boston, Massachusetts at the time, and Meyer traveled from Brecksville, Ohio, to see her that November.
He said he found "a certain awkwardness in meeting someone for the first time when you think you already know them well."
However, the outlet noted that that feeling "quickly passed as they spent the weekend walking around Boston hand in hand."
"Within the first 24 hours we just wanted to be together," Sheehan said.
Meyer moved to Boston in December of that year.
On December 30, 2010, the couple wed at St. Mary’s Church in Navan, Ireland, near Dublin, the New York Times reported.
56 years prior, Sheehan's maternal grandparents had tied the knot at the same church.
The outlet reported that Reverend Richard Murphy, a Roman Catholic priest and a great-uncle of Sheehan, performed the wedding ceremony.
The reception was held at the Station House Hotel near the Hill of Tara, "the seat of Ireland’s high kings."
Sheehan's father, Dr. Michael Sheehan, spoke at the reception.
"Did we care that she lost on the show? No, because in reality she had won, as she had won her husband," he said.
According to TV Insider, Sheehan and Meyer have since welcomed a son.
What game shows has Genevieve Sheehan competed on?
Sheehan competed on Jeopardy! in October 2009, and although she lost, she had been ahead twice and correctly answered a Daily Double, according to the New York Times.
As TV Insider reported, she also competed on ABC's The Chase in 2022, where she went up against former Jeopardy! TOC winner, James Holzhauer.
Per the outlet, she "fared well on the show, winning $165,000 of a $330,000 jackpot after her team defeated Holzhauer in the Final Chase."
