Assistant Professor Jocelyn Smith Lee wins more than $57K on ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ kicking off 2025 with some much-needed positivity

Under the lights of Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Calif., Jocelyn Smith Lee, assistant professor of Human Development and Family Studies at UNC Greensboro, took her turn on “Wheel of Fortune” and won big. A lifelong ‘Wheel’ watcher, Smith Lee won more than $57,000, including a trip to New York City. And it could not have come at a better time. 

“This has been a much-needed moment of joy for us in a tough year,” Smith Lee says.  

The family game 

Smith Lee grew up in Pennsylvania watching Wheel of Fortune with her great-grandmother Mildred, grandmother Viola, affectionately known as “Tootsie,” and mother Roslyn. 

“It was a part of the fabric of our daily lives: homework, dinner, and then our weekly game shows,” Smith Lee says.  

She continues that tradition today with her husband, UNCG assistant basketball coach C.J. Lee, and their 4-year-old daughter Cypress Rose, part of the inspiration for her journey to the popular gameshow. 

“I used ‘Wheel’ to teach her letter recognition and colors. I would hear myself solving puzzles and saying aloud, ‘I could do this. I should go on the show.’” Smith Lee says. “I wanted my daughter to see me not just talk but take action, so we recorded an audition video.”  
 
Nearly a year later, in September 2024, Smith Lee received the email that she was a contestant on the show. “I received the email notifying me that I was a contestant while I was in the hospital with my mom, who was battling cancer, so I was able to share that with her and be silly with her as I imagined how I would introduce myself on the show. That was the last time I saw my mom laugh,” Smith Lee says. 

Last year was marked by illness and profound loss for Smith Lee and her family – her Tootsie and Roslyn passed away within a few months of each other, and her mother-in-law and aunt battled serious health concerns. Smith Lee says that her turn on the Wheel could not have come at a better time.  

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and my family was so proud and excited,” she says. 

Competing with the Wheel 

As a lifelong fan and home player, Smith Lee came into the game experience with some key strategies. 

“My main strategy was to stay energized and stay connected to the experience. I also knew I did not want to overspin the wheel. Watching people from home, that makes me so nervous!” she says. “You just don’t know what will happen when that wheel moves, and it is heavy.” 

Her other strategy is to solve early. “I also decided that if I knew the puzzle and there was no consonant that appeared more than once, I would stop and solve.”  

Those strategies won her a trip to New York City and a trip to the bonus round. 

“I almost cried when I realized I knew the final puzzle. I was imagining my mom and my grandmothers cheering me on,” Smith Lee says.  

Community-engaged work 

Back on campus, Smith Lee will continue her work as a community-engaged scholar and researcher. In 2023, she received the School of Health and Human Sciences Community Engaged Award for her research on the marginalized trauma and grief of Black boys and men as a result of gun violence. 

“My professional pathway to this work is also personal; I have lost loved ones to gun violence,” Smith Lee says.  

Smith Lee is the founder and director of the Centering Black Voices (CBV) Research Lab at UNCG. CBV and partners Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition Youth Opportunity Center photographer Zizwe Allette and creative consultant Zun Lee created a visual storytelling and narrative change project, In All Ways Human. 

“It’s an ongoing project for us as a lab, but also as a nation and as a society,” she says. “Our work promotes healing through identifying the impacts of trauma and grief in the lives of black boys and men in their families and also trying to simultaneously address root causes.”  

Smith Lee and CBV continue that work through the Healing Greensboro project. The intergenerational work investigates how parents and teens communicate, cope, and construct experiences of gun violence in the community.  

In November 2024, Smith Lee, doctoral candidate Indya Walker, and their co-authors published “Rethinking Resilience and Post-traumatic Growth: The Promise of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Understanding Adaptive Responses to Adversity” in The American Psychologist. Smith Lee is mentoring another doctoral student whose master’s thesis focuses on the impact of gun violence on Black mothers.  

“We’re really broadening our work to make it more family and intergenerational in scope and look forward to continuing to do that with a focus on those most vulnerable,” Smith Lee says. 

This spring, Smith Lee and her husband will enjoy their 10th anniversary with a trip to New York City, courtesy of her winnings on “Wheel of Fortune,” and she plans to take a minute to take stock.  

“This excitement has inspired me to dream again and has been such a surge of joy for our family,” Smith Lee says. “I’m excited to take some moments to really think about what I want, what’s next, and how to best make future impact.” 

Story by Alice Manning Touchette

Photography courtesy of Jocelyn Smith Lee