BU Wins Brain Bowl Competition

April 12, 2006

From answering the first question correctly to the very last and nearly all points in between, Baylor University's Brain Bowl team coasted to its fifth-consecutive title on Tuesday, April 11, in San Antonio. Baylor's team, made up of four students all of whom are neuroscience and psychology majors, competed against the University of Texas - Austin and the University of Texas - San Antonio to claim the top spot.

"I think this shows we have a very strong neuroscience major," said Dr. Brad Keele, who has been the Brain Bowl team's faculty advisor for the past five years. "We came out with a win and that's what we came down here looking for."

The annual Brain Bowl is a Jeopardy-like quiz show competition that tests the knowledge of undergraduate neuroscience and psychology students from Texas universities. Teams must buzz-in to answer the question. As the questions increase in difficulty, the number of points awarded for guessing correctly increases as well. Baylor scored 532 points, while UT scored 111 points and UTSA scored 55 points. Brain Bowler Michael Dyer, a senior from Missouri, said he knew they were going to win during the third round, when the team answered five questions correctly in a row.

"After we got our nervousness down, we started to take over," said Dyer, who along with Lorena Maili, Megan Uhelski and Aaron Chaloner made up this year's Brain Bowl team.

The team received a small trophy for their efforts, but all involved say they had fun.

"We had a great time, good competition and I wish we could do it again," Dyer said.