Auburn engineering graduates appear on FOX game show
Published: Apr 28, 2026 2:00 PM
By Dustin Duncan
Ryan McGill, ’20 computer engineering, and Jennifer Matis, ’20 mechanical engineering, appeared on Fox’s “The 1% Club,” a puzzle-based game show hosted by Joel McHale.
Ryan McGill, ’20 computer engineering, and Jennifer Matis, ’20 mechanical engineering, appeared on “The 1% Club” Monday night on Fox, hosted by Joel McHale.
The show features 100 contestants competing to solve skill- and logic-based puzzles that increase in difficulty — all based on how a surveyed group of Americans performed on each question — for a chance to win up to $100,000.
McGill said his appearance on the show came unexpectedly after being contacted directly by producers.
“It was very random happenstance,” McGill said. “I got an email or a cold call — like a LinkedIn message — that I thought sounded like a scam.”
McGill and Matis went through the show’s application process, including an audition with an executive producer and a qualifying test.
The episode was filmed in Atlanta in December.
He is currently a research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and is pursuing a doctoral degree in electrical engineering. Matis is a flight test engineer with Boeing.
“The game show itself is puzzles — it’s logic puzzles, not trivia,” he said. “The abstract problem solving and solution finding I developed at Auburn definitely helped.”
The 1% Club airs at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evenings.