DENISE MERCADO
Role:
Anthropologist, Cordillera field site supervisor
Institution:
Rutgers University
Denise Mercado is a doctoral student at Rutgers University working with Dr. Lee Cronk. She is broadly interested in morality and religion, coalitional psychology, and cooperation. For her
dissertation, she plans to establish field sites in highland rural and lowland urban areas in the
Cordillera region in the Philippines and, through comparative ethnographies and experimental
economic games, study the effect of flexible coalitional psychology on cooperation and
coordination in these regions. Denise is also a registered yoga instructor and has been
practicing yoga for over 10 years. Her practice has inspired an interest in how psychosocial
factors affect physical health, the cultural evolution of yoga from a spiritual philosophy to a
mainstream exercise trend, and more general research on meditation and the mind.