Olivia Marcus

Olivia Marcus (she/her) completed her Phd in Medical Anthropology from the University of Connecticut and an MPH in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (5T32 DA007233), where she is conducting mixed-methods research on the design and evaluation of complex interventions to address addiction recovery and mental health issues in Indigenous/First Nations communities in Mexico and Canada. She is also working to co-develop a survey on integration practices among people who drink ayahuasca in the US and Canada. For the past few years, she has led the qualitative component of the mixed-methods Ayahuasca Treatment Outcome Project to assess outcomes for addiction recovery in an all-male therapeutic community in Peru. Olivia conducted her doctoral fieldwork in the upper Peruvian Amazon, where she investigated perceptions of mental wellness and healing among mestizo curanderos (i.e., vegetalistas) and their clientele.