Meet the Team

For more than two decades, the Big Quiz Thing has featured America’s finest team of live quizmasters: Professional performers and event coordinators who are experts at bringing people together via trivia. We are professional trivia hosts for events including corporate team building events, hosted virtual team building activities, live in-person team building events, and trivia night fundraiser hosts!

Our Quizmasters

Noah Tarnow

Founder & Lead Quizmaster

Noah Tarnow

Founder & Lead Quizmaster

Noah Tarnow is creator, writer, and senior quizmaster of the Big Quiz Thing, the live trivia spectacular and America’s premier providers of custom corporate and private trivia events. A recognized national trivia authority, he’s designed and hosted thousands of live game shows for clients from coast to coast, in addition to having starred in and written the BQT’s television adaptation (the world’s first bar-trivia TV show) and having designed the company’s pioneering digital trivia answer system. He also co-hosts the podcast I Don’t Get It: The Pop Culture Get-Off-My-Lawn-Cast; is a former editor for Rolling Stone and Time Out New York; has written trivia columns for Time Out, American Movie Classics, Mental Floss, Better Homes and Gardens, and Hemispheres; has written for and appeared on NPR’s Ask Me Another quiz show; and competed on both Jeopardy! and the VH1 game show Name That Video. In 2017 he raised thousands of dollars for the ACLU by singing 400 karaoke songs in one year. He lives in San Francisco with his reference materials.

EdP a.k.a Eric de Picciotto

Quizmaster

EdP a.k.a Eric de Picciotto

Quizmaster

EdP a.k.a Eric de Picciotto has been with the BQT for over twelve years. Shortly after being in the audience at the very first Big Quiz Thing, he approached Quizmaster Noah about helping make the Big Quiz Thing a top-notch multimedia production–creating a theme song, graphics package, and audio stings for its signature games and show elements. EdP has hosted private and corporate Big Quiz Thing parties nationwide, and starred alongside Quizmaster Noah on the BQT TV show. In addition, EdP is one of the top voiceover artists in the country, lending his voice to campaigns for national brands and promoting TV networks all over the dial. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two kids.

Jen Connor

Quizmaster

Jen Connor

Quizmaster

Jen Connor is a singer, actor, comedian, and voiceover artist based in Chicago. New York and Chicago comedy credits include The Second City, National Public Radio, Baby Wants Candy, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Annoyance, the Magnet Theater, the People’s Improv Theater, and more. She’s performed improv and sketch comedy on the high seas with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Norwegian Cruise Lines, musicals at the Adelaide and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, and improvised musicals Off Broadway. A classical soprano trained at New York University, Jen has performed opera, musicals, and live theater around the world since 2008. Jen teaches sketch writing and musical improv at the Annoyance Theater. You can see her every Friday at 8PM performing original sketch at the Annoyance with Missed Call (@Missed_Call_Improv) and every Tuesday at 8PM improvising musicals with TMI (tuesdaymusicalimprov). Follow her on Instagram @choosejencon

Wes Hazard

Quizmaster

Wes Hazard

Quizmaster

Wes Hazard is a stand-up comic and writer. A trivia fan from way back, he decided to devote himself to knowing every useless fact possible after a crushing tie-breaker defeat in an eighth-grade geography bee—and was recently redeemed by coming out victorious on three episodes of Jeopardy! He’s performed in the Boston Comedy Festival and the Women in Comedy Festival (yes), and he was named one of “5 Boston Comedians to Watch” by The Boston Globe.

Rory Scholl

Quizmaster

Rory Scholl

Quizmaster

Rory Scholl is an improviser and storyteller based in NYC. He is a Moth Story Slam winner; and appears frequently on the storytelling podcast RISK Sometimes he is on the cruise ship MSC Seaside, performing with Beerprov. He was recently on The Marvelous Ms Maisel and tours as a standup comic at clubs across the country. He is a spokesperson and mascot for UNICEF too. His original stories and book can be found on Amazon’s Original Stories series: amazon.com/ThisCantBeHappening.

J. Keith van Straaten

Quizmaster

J. Keith van Straaten

Quizmaster

J. Keith van Straaten is the host and co-creator of Go Fact Yourself, a celebrity game show podcast on the Maximum Fun network. He created and hosted the live matchmaking show The Fix-Up Show, as well as hosting What’s My Line? – Live On Stage and Comedy Central’s Beat The Geeks. J. Keith creates puzzles and games as a senior writer on NPR’s Ask Me Another, is a content producer on the syndicated TV game show Funny You Should Ask, and wrote many of the games on GSN’s Chain Reaction. His cat Cookie is the best cat in the world.

Tooky Kavanagh

Quizmaster

Tooky Kavanagh

Quizmaster

Tooky Kavanagh (“Tooky” rhymes with “cookie”) is a stand-up comedian, actor, and pop culture enthusiast whose charm was once described as “ineffable.” As a comedian, she’s opened for Maria Bamford, Matteo Lane, Atsuko Okatsuka, and more, and has even graced the stage of Boston’s historic Wilbur Theatre. (She’s the one who described her own charm as “ineffable,” but it’s still true!)

Other Genius People

Cathy Bovitz

Director of Operations

Cathy Bovitz

Director of Operations

Cathy Bovitz has a broad background in marketing, teaching, event management and paralegal work. In her free time, she enjoys the theater, both on stage and off, and time with her family and pets.

Katie Sekelsky

Trivia Content Contributor

Katie Sekelsky

Trivia Content Contributor

Katie Sekelsky is a trivia writer and artist based in Kent, OH. In addition to creating content for the BQT, she has won a national team trivia championship and appeared on Jeopardy! Katie runs The Inkling, a postal-based trivia competition best described as “like paying to do homework, but in a fun way?” and also produces a yearly question-a-day desk calendar.

Bill Scurry

Special Projects

Bill Scurry

Special Projects

Bill Scurry is a video editor and podcaster based in Amsterdam, who devotes his time to watching movies, bicycling, and trying to convince street cats that he means no harm.

Aaron Ramey

IT Specialist

Aaron Ramey

IT Specialist

Aaron Ramey is a pandemic addition to the Big Quiz Thing team. Growing up in Ohio and earning his BFA in Musical Theater from Otterbein University, he moved to NYC to pursue his acting dreams and has since amassed a performance resume that includes Broadway and National Tours, as well as numerous regional theater and television appearances. He started seriously cultivating his nerd skills when he became a Mac Specialist at the Apple Store in SoHo back in the early aughts, and has been solving all manner of tech problems for consumers and small businesses across the country ever since.

Akhila Uppada

Managing Director

Akhila Uppada

Managing Director

Akhila Uppada is a Business Operations professional with 8+ years of experience in strategic approaches to operational excellence and holds an MBA from the University of South Florida. She thrives on building strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, facilitating collaboration and communication across teams and functions, and empowering team members to grow and excel in their roles. She enjoys yoga, meditation, solving puzzles, and spending time with her family.

Elizabeth Aronson

Director of Event Sales

Elizabeth Aronson

Director of Event Sales

Elizabeth Aronson joins Big Quiz Thing after 5 years serving as The Director of Customer Experience for Bambino, a National babysitting app. Elizabeth lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and 3 kids and 2 dogs. She serves on the board of the Dell Children’s Hospital Trust and volunteers with local non-profit organizations to support youth in foster care. She spends her evenings as a chauffer to her kids (many) sports and dance/cheer practices. She also enjoys playing tennis and attending live music. Her favorite favorite part of her role with the Big Quiz Thing is connecting with and meeting new people (she says it’s the Midwesterner in her).

Our Mission

Creating dynamic, high-quality trivia experiences for corporate teams, social gatherings, fundraising causes, and special events, the Big Quiz Thing sparks curiosity, fosters connection, and celebrates the joy of knowledge.

Our Values

Accessible

Trivia shouldn’t just be for the genius at the end of the bar. The Big Quiz Thing’s hosted trivia events are welcoming and fun for all kinds of people—properly customized for each audience and presented in a spirit that everyone can enjoy.

Honest

We will always deal with our clients in a straightforward manner—no manipulation, no hidden details, no unanswered questions. We build our business on the client’s trust that we will always be a fair dealer.

Professional

Our clients expect the best, and we always push ourselves to deliver. From responding to questions in a timely manner to treating each hosted trivia event as a special occasion, everyone on the Big Quiz Thing team strives to be professional in all aspects of service.

Smart

We respect our clients’ intelligence, so we don’t think it’s necessary to dumb-down our product for anyone. The Big Quiz Thing believes in the power—and the appeal—of being smart, thoughtful, and creative.