Dean Keith Simonton, 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award winner

Dean Keith Simonton’s interest in human intelligence arose, in part, from a youthful enthusiasm for the classical arts, sciences, and humanities. That keen interest in the nature and origins of genius in those domains led to a prolific research career. Dr. Simonton is the Distinguished Professor in Psychology at the University of California, Davis.

With a master’s and doctorate from Harvard, his preferred research approach is historiometric, using the tools of history, biography, and psychometrics to extrapolate principles about human behavior. His 500-plus books, chapters, and articles explore genius, creativity, leadership, talent, and aesthetics.

“My view of intelligence … says that there are a certain set of cognitive capacities that enable an individual to adapt and thrive in any given environment they find themselves in, and those cognitive capacities include things like memory and retrieval, and problem solving and so forth,” Dr. Simonton said.

His numerous awards include the Award for Excellence in Research (1986, 2009, and 2011) from the Mensa Foundation.

The Mensa Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award is presented every other year in recognition of a lifetime of contributions to the field of intelligence and related subjects.