Who wants to be a millionaire? Cornell University junior Natalie Gulyas does.

Gulyas, who is from Denver, gets her turn to phone a friend, poll the audience and request a 50-50. She will face TV host Meredith Viera while sitting on the hot seat of the television quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Monday, Feb. 9, at 7 p.m. Locally, the show airs on WIXT-TV (Channel 9 on Time-Warner Cable).

A major in meteorology in the university's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Gulyas (pronounced goo-lee-ASH) applied to be a contestant last July during a special online sign-up. From there she went to New York City to take the show's placement test and then an interview with the show's producers. A week later, Gulyas received a postcard telling her she was in the contestant pool.

Just before Thanksgiving, the show's producers called Gulyas to ask if she would like to participate in the show's "college edition." She agreed and joined students from Harvard, New York University, Fordham, Queens College, University at Buffalo, Hofstra and Providence College at the Buena Vista Television studio in Orlando, Fla., in early January.

Regardless of how Gulyas performs on the show's hot seat (she's not allowed to say until the show airs), she plans on completing her studies to become a television meteorologist. It is a dream she has had since, as a student at Northglenn High School in Colorado, she spent an afternoon following meteorologist Larry Green at KCNC-TV in Denver. She earned an associate's of science degree at Front Range Community College in Westminster, Colo., where she was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honors society for two-year colleges, and she was an All-State Academic Team member in Colorado. Gulyas transferred to Cornell two years ago to complete her bachelor's degree.