Andrej Mentel

Andrej Mentel is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology within the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. He holds a Master's in Biomedical Physics and a PhD in Ethnology from Comenius University. His research focuses on evolutionary and cognitive anthropology, with specialization in ritual studies, linguistic anthropology, and environmental anthropology in the Western Balkans and Carpathian regions. Mentel combines ethnographic methods with cognitive psychology and advanced statistical analysis to explore topics like dervish orders' social functions in Bosnia, linguistic socialization in children, and cultural representations of landscapes.

Educational Background: 1996-2001 Mgr. (Biomedical Physics) and 2001-2009 PhD (Ethnology) from Comenius University in Bratislava.

Teaching Responsibilities include courses on field methods, data analysis, and statistical techniques at both bachelor's and master's levels. His recent grants include leading a study on pandemic strategies (2021-2023) and contributing to cross-cultural philosophy research (2015-2021). He has held research positions at Karl-Franzens Universität Graz (Austria) through various scholarships. Mentel is a member of the Slovak Association of Social Anthropology and International Association for Southeast European Anthropology.

His research highlights the intersection of ritual practices with social cohesion, cognitive development through language acquisition, and environmental knowledge transmission in marginalized communities. Mentel's work bridges anthropology with quantitative methods, reflecting his unique interdisciplinary approach.