Nelson Dellis

Personal life

Dellis was born in Wimbledon, UK, to a Belgian mother and a French father, and grew up in England, France, and the United States. He attended high school at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami, Florida. After graduation, he went on to attend the University of Miami, where he graduated with a major in physics and a minor in mathematics. He then earned a master's degree in computer science, also from the University of Miami, and wrote his thesis on Automated reasoning. He is a mountain climber who has made three attempts to climb Mount Everest, and has scaled Alaska's Mount McKinley along with other mountains around the world.

Dellis lives in Miami, Florida with his wife.

Mental athletics

Dellis was originally inspired to improve his memory after seeing the decline of his grandmother's memory due to Alzheimer's disease, and entered his first memory competition in 2009. He has since placed in a number of competitions as well as broken numerous memory records (see below).

Dellis was featured in the 2012 documentary Ben Franklin Blowing Bubbles at a Sword: The Journey of a Mental Athlete. He also appeared in the Science Channel program Memory Games in July 2013, which covered the 2013 US Memory Championships. He has also been interviewed regarding memory training on Today, The Dr. Oz Show, and Nightline.

2010

2011

2012

He also received the title of international Grand Master of Memory, the highest title bestowed by the World Memory Sports Council, at this event.

2013

2014

2015

2016

Records

As of Feb. 17, 2017, Dellis held 4 American records. He was the first American to memorize a deck of cards at an international competition in under 60 seconds. He was also the second American to achieve the Grand Master of Memory title.

Dellis holds a number of memory records, including the US national record for memorizing the most names in 15 minutes, 201 names. He also is the former record holder for memorizing a deck of shuffled cards in 63 seconds as well as for memorizing the most digits in 5 minutes, with 339 digits memorized. He is also ranked 15th in the world for memorizing a deck of cards, with a time of 40.65 seconds, one of the fastest times for an American in an international competition. He currently ranks 50th in the world as a memory athlete.

Career

Before becoming involved in memory athletics, Dellis worked as a software developer. He also worked as a Veterinary Technician and as a Vedic Mathematics (mental math) teacher at Math Monkey of Pinecrest in Miami. In Chicago, he worked at a local yarn shop, experimenting with large scale knitting projects. He now works as a public speaker and memory consultant, giving talks on his climbs as well as holding seminars about memory techniques. Dellis is also the co-founder of Memory League (formerly, Extreme Memory Tournament) , a new type of competitive memory platform that allows memory enthusiasts to challenge each other online. He has also written a children's picture book called "I Forgot Something (but I can't remember what it was)" designed to teach children the basics of memory techniques.

Charity work

In 2010, Dellis founded Climb for Memory, a charity organization that raises money for Alzheimer's research through sponsored mountain climbs undertaken by Dellis. Fusion-io sponsored an ascent of Everest in 2013, following up on a 2011 attempt in which Dellis had to turn back 280 feet from the summit due to equipment failure. He also attempted Everest in 2016 but turned around at the South Col because of developing HAPE.