Should I Join Mensa?
- Oct 9, 2017
The more the merrier, we always say, but just know that American Mensa is not the destination but a crossroads toward many destinations. Mensans are homemakers, doctors, engineers, students, athletes, teachers — a rich melting pot, for sure, but with one binding trait: high intelligence.
“Should I be in Mensa?” Meet a few people who decided it was the right fit for them.
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Natalie Hampton isn’t your typical high school teenager. Haunted by 7th and 8th grade bullies, Natalie spent those school years eating lunch alone.
In high school, Natalie created Sit With Us, an app that gives students a welcoming way to find lunch mates without fear of being rejected. Her work as an anti-bullying advocate has won her awards, including the Mensa Foundation’s Copper Black Award for Creative Achievement.
Motivated further by the attention she and her app have received, Natalie is expanding her advocacy, speaking at conferences and partnering with anti-bullying organizations to promote a message of inclusion.
Michael McKenzie has been creating art for more than 25 years, studying a variety of disciplines.
His incredible artwork has adorned halls of barracks in basic training while he was in the Army, on a variety of unconventional canvasses during his deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and at a hydroelectric dam powerhouse for the Lower Colorado River Authority.
Robert Moran is a data-driven strategist and partner at the Brunswick Group, where he leads Brunswick Insight, the firm’s perception research and analytics function.
Robert has lectured at the National War College in Washington, D.C., and is a frequent speaker on trends in public opinion and market research. He is also the founder of the Future of Insight Project, an initiative that explores innovation and trends in the research sector.
Robert's June 2017 Mensa Bulletin cover feature, Tensions in an Accelerating World, dissects a global survey on the accelerating rate of worldwide change, providing a fascinating look at our increasing technological dependency, financial optimism versus pessimism, and the effects — positive and negative — of globalization.
Greg D’Alessandro is a writer, producer, and musician.
A Writers Guild of America member, Greg has written numerous projects for TV, film, and theater — and at least one piece of fiction for American Mensa’s monthly magazine, the Mensa Bulletin. He lives in New York and Los Angeles — at the same time — where he is currently developing a musical, The DaVinci Academy.
Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin is a longtime educator who teaches the post-doc masterclass at the University of Cambridge, for which she flies to England once a year.
She lives the rest of the year in Laguna Beach, Calif., writing books for educators, data users, and researchers. With a Ph.D. in education featuring a specialization in school improvement leadership, Dr. Rankin also volunteers as assistant coordinator of Orange County Mensa’s gifted youth program.
Her research on the intersection between data and design resulted in a proposal to communicate data more effectively by making data over-the-counter.
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Artists and authors, educators and innovators — our members come from every walk of life. They find Mensa in different stages in life and join for different reasons, because Mensa is where brilliance belongs. Interested in finding out where you belong? Find a test session near you or submit evidence of your past testing.