Wei-Hwa Huang (born August 4, 1975 in Eugene, Oregon)[1] is an American puzzler, member of the US Team for the World Puzzle Championship,[2] and game designer.[3]
Huang was a member of the United States International Math Olympiad team in 1992 and 1993, where he was awarded a Silver Medal both years. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1993.[4] Huang has won the annual World Puzzle Championship on four occasions: 1995 and 1997 - 1999.[5] [6] He also won the 2008 Sudoku National Championship.[7] With team Left Out, he won the 2019 MIT Mystery Hunt.[8]
With Tom Lehmann, Huang designed the board game Roll for the Galaxy released in 2014 by Rio Grande Games. Roll for the Galaxy is a dice-based adaption of the award-winning card game Race for the Galaxy with deck-building mechanics. Huang and Lehmann also designed Roll for the Galaxy: Ambition, an expansion released in 2015. Roll for the Galaxy was nominated for three Golden Geek Awards and an International Gamers Award.[9]
Huang graduated from Montgomery Blair High School[10] and the California Institute of Technology[11] and was an employee at Google until July 2008.[12] One of his most famous projects was the Da Vinci Code Quest on Google, which was a set of 24 puzzles launched on April 17, 2006, in cooperation with Columbia Pictures.[13]
Huang submitted a crossword puzzle to The New York Times newspaper which was published on Tuesday, September 10, 2002.[14] In 2012, Huang co-authored a book with Will Shortz, the editor of The New York Times crossword puzzle.[15]
Huang is an investor and co-producer of the Broadway musical The Lightning Thief.[16]