Alex Mullen (memory athlete)

Alex Mullen

Mullen at the 2016 World Memory Championship in Singapore
Personal information
Full name	Alexander Joseph Mullen
Nationality	American
Born	(1992-03-03) March 3, 1992 Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Residence	Jackson, Mississippi
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins University (B.S. in Biomedical Engineering)
Years active	2014-present
Spouse(s)	Cathy Chen (m. 2015)
Website	www.mullenmemory.com
Sport
Sport	Memory
Rank	No. 1 (July 2016)
Achievements and titles
World finals	1st place (2015, 2016)
National finals	1st place (2016)
Highest world ranking	No. 1 (July 2016)
Personal best(s)	Speed Cards (digital): 16.86 sec (2016, WR) Speed Cards (analog): 16.96 sec (2016, WR) 30 min Cards: 17.5 decks (2016, WR) 80 Digits: 17.65 sec (2016, WR) 5 min Numbers: 520 digits (2016, WR) 15 min Numbers: 1100 digits (2016, WR) 30 min Numbers: 1933 digits (2016, WR) 60 min Numbers: 3029 digits (2015, WR)

Alex Mullen (born March 3, 1992) is an American memory grandmaster and medical student, and the current world memory champion.^[1][2] The first American to win the world title, he won the 2015 and 2016 world championships and is currently the world No. 1 ranked memory competitor.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} He is also the current USA memory champion.^[7] Along with his wife, he runs Mullen Memory, a nonprofit which "provides free resources exploring memory techniques as learning tools."^[8]

Personal life

Mullen was born in Princeton, New Jersey.^[3] He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi and attended Oxford High School, where he competed on the varsity swimming and tennis teams.^[9] In his senior year, Mullen was a National Merit Finalist and fourth award winner at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for a team project with his future wife, Cathy Chen.^[10][11] He attended Johns Hopkins University to study biomedical engineering and applied mathematics & statistics.^[12]

Mullen lives in Jackson, Mississippi and attends the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, where he and his wife are students.^[9] Both received the Jim and Donna Barksdale Scholarship to cover the full cost of attendance over four years of medical school.^[3]

Notable competitions

2015

• World Memory Championships (Dec. 16-18, Chengdu, China): 1st place overall.^[13] Mullen became the tenth individual, and the first American, to win the world championship since its inception in 1991.^[14] He also received the title of international grandmaster of memory, the highest title bestowed by the World Memory Sports Council, at this event.^[15][16]

2016

• USA Memory Championship (May 9, Hershey, PA): 1st place overall.^[17] Mullen became the ninth individual to win the American national championship since its inception in 1998.^[18]
• US Open (July 2-3, Los Angeles, CA): 1st place overall. With 8,794 total points, Mullen achieved the highest total score in memory sports history (taking into account adjustments in scoring standards), giving him the world No. 1 ranking.^[19][20]
• Memoriad (Nov. 8-10, Las Vegas, NV): gold: speed cards, hour numbers, silver: names and faces, spoken numbers.^[21]
• European Open (Dec. 3-4, London, UK): 1st place overall.^[22] With 9,143 total points, Mullen broke his earlier mark for highest total score, a record that still stands.^[23]
• World Memory Championships (Dec. 15-17, Singapore): 1st place overall.^[24]

Records

As of Dec. 6, 2016, Mullen held 9 memory world records and 12 American records.^{[25][26][27][28]} He is the first person to memorize the order of a deck of playing cards in under 20 seconds at an official competition.^[29] He is also the first to memorize more than 3,000 decimal digits in one hour.^[30]

See also

• Mnemonist
• Extreme Memory Tournament
• List of Johns Hopkins University people
• List of University of Mississippi alumni

References

External links

• Mullen Memory