Eric Mukherjee

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Eric Mukherjee
Eric2.jpg
Noted subjects General, History, Science, Japan, World Mythology, and Comic Books
Current college Retired
Past colleges Brown (2007-2009), University of Pennsylvania (2010-2018)
High school Washburn Rural High School
Stats HDWhite • NAQT

Eric Mukherjee is a multiple-choice genius and political dissident. Eric is the best biology and chemistry player in the history of the game and is often considered the best overall science player ever [1]. Eric played as an undergraduate at Brown helping them to several second place finishes at ACF Nationals and led the Penn team for several years as an MD-PhD student.

After nine years of serious play and individual distinction without any national titles (including close 2nd-place finishes every year from 2007 through 2010), Eric finally led the winning team at 2015 ACF Nationals. Eric has also been acknowledged as "the single most sought-after CO teammate," having been a key player on the winning teams in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2016 (having edited in 2015 and not played in 2011 or 2017), taking second place in 2009 and 2013.

Undergraduate Career

Eric was previously a student at Brown, where he served as vice president of the club after randomly running into Jerry Vinokurov in the mailroom. Despite invariably getting dragged into Jerry's crazy transportation schemes, he respectfully referred/refers to him as "fearless leader"; the pair formed a solid one-two punch. He helped the team to two 2nd place finishes at ACF nationals and high finishes elsewhere.

He is known for maintaining his good humor under most circumstances; notable exceptions include the Boston mirror of Moon Pie 2007, where he and teammate Dennis Jang, a model of level-headedness, almost spontaneously combusted due to the sheer amount of funn. The experience gave him a burning desire to not only get revenge on MIT A, but also write a good tournament to erase the memory. He accomplished both at Deep Bench 2007 at Brandeis and with EFT2, respectively.

His junior and senior year also saw several notable victories (mainly a 2nd place finish at ACF Nationals 2008), though he was forced to miss both nationals his senior year due to interviews. During that time, he managed to win Chicago Open 2008 on a team with Matt Weiner, Jerry Vinokurov, and Jonathan Magin and placed 2nd in CO 2009 with Ted Gioia, Dallas Simons, and Jerry Vinokurov while tying Vinokurov in scoring in the latter instance.

Graduate Career

His time at Penn has seen somewhat of a decrease in his playing time, but he managed to chock up some impressive wins while leading Penn to a third place finish at the 2010 ICT. After spending the 2011 nationals season within the death grip of a hospital ward (as a student, not a patient), he returned to active competition in 2012, leading a team of Saajid Moyen, Patrick Liao, and James Lasker - two freshmen and a sophomore - to a 4th place finish at 2012 ACF Nationals.

The intervening years saw several high-top-bracket finishes for Penn A, with no finals appearances. The acquisition of Dallas Simons led Penn to more high finishes over the next two years, though Simons was later replaced by geography/CE specialist Chris Chiego for the 2014-15 season. After much focused studying and with key contributions from all four players, Penn A managed to make it to the finals of both national tournaments in 2015, winning ACF Nationals against strong teams from Chicago, UVA, Stanford, Maryland, and Michigan.

After 2015, Eric continued leading a team of Jaimie Carlson, Jinah Kim, Paul Lee, Max Smiley, Aidan Mehigan and others to several victories at invitationals and high-level finishes at nationals. In his final year of active play, he led Penn to a 4th place finish at 2018 ICT (with Jaimie Carlson, Jinah Kim, and Aidan Mehigan) and to 2nd place at 2018 ACF Nationals (with Jaimie Carlson, Jinah Kim, and freshman Nitin Rao), the latter after winning two thrilling games in a three-way tie for second place and handing 1st place Chicago its only loss.

Apart from his leadership of Penn A, Eric also contributed to winning teams at Chicago Open 2012, 2014, and 2016, with the 2014 win helping UVA complete their Triple Crown.

After completing his MD-PhD degree, Eric will continue his training at Vanderbilt as a dermatology resident, where he hopes to keep contributing to quizbowl by reading and writing as much as possible, with the occasional appearance at open tournaments and side events as time permits.

Writing

Eric is one of the best--and most sought after--science writers in contemporary quizbowl. He served as the head editor for the Lederberg Memorial Science and its sequel, was a co-editor of the 2009 ACF Regionals, and edited science for the 2007 Chicago Open, Gaddis II, The Emergency, several iterations of Penn Bowl and PACE NSC, and 2015 Chicago Open. He's currently working on MSTP and a sequel to Lederberg.

His writing outside of science has often been overlooked, but he has been one of the most important writers of accessible tournaments; he edited several successful incarnations of the Early Fall Tournament by nitpicking every question to death, was the driving force behind the second iteration of THUNDER, and several editions of Penn Bowl, despite his best efforts to try to hand Penn Bowl off to the next generation of Penn students. However, his writing has also often featured vanity trash questions on comic books, deep cuts from the Star Wars expanded universe, and similar "geek trash" interests.

Eric was also the central figure in the 5th of March Incident, and subsequently (with Matt Jackson) helped edit NHBB's national tournaments in 2015. He has occasionally contributed to NHBB, PACE, and HSAPQ since then.

Nicknames/Appellations

  • DE
  • Dark Eric
  • Mukherjee
  • Lord Eric Mukherjee
  • Mukherjesus

Writing/Editing Work

College

High School

  • PACE NSC - Head Editor 2012, 2013, contributor, 2014, 2015, 2016
  • HSAPQ
  • NHBB Regional A-Set and Nationals sets, 2015

Notable Tournaments

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