'Sexy Geek' claims crown

A 32-year-old computer science professor from Mills College in Oakland, California, was crowned the "sexiest geek alive" on Tuesday in San Jose.

Ellen Spertus walked away with the title after beating stiff competition from 10,000 other geeky entrants.

The annual contest had been narrowed down to eight regional US finalists from 10,000 who applied on the competition website.

Contestants had to answer randomly generated geek questions such as: "What group of subatomic particles carries fractional charge?", "What is the half-life of a free neutron?" and "Which US pizza delivery companies do not offer an online ordering service?"

The competition was hosted by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine star, Chase Masterson, and Miss California, Jennifer Glover.

Aside from the questions, contestants had to successfully sell their geeky personalities. Amid much talk of Star Wars and Linux, Spertus managed to win the hearts of geeks everywhere with her anecdote about successfully suing the now defunct Kozmo.com for spamming her.

"Let that be a lesson to spammers everywhere," she said amid wild cheering.

As the all-new queen of the geeks, Spertus said she would use her teaching position to encourage more geeky tendencies in her pupils. She was confident that the accolade would "increase my students' respect in me".

Spertus won a state-of-the-art PC and an all-expenses-paid cruise from geekcruises.com, along with the most revered title of Sexiest Geek Alive.

Further reading

• Web

Geek gives new meaning to Java PC

• 26 Jul 2002

• Skills

IT staff 'less popular than accountants'

• 10 Dec 2001

• Web

Hunt on for sexiest geek alive

• 11 Mar 2002

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