Christia Mercer is the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She studied art history in New York and Rome, before going to graduate school in philosophy. Since publishing Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development in 2001, she has published papers on early modern Platonism and its centrality in early modern thought. Her most recent awards include: Sovern Fellowship, American Academy, Rome, Italy (2010); Senior Fellowship, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany (2013); Resident Fellowship, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy (2013); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2012-13).

Mercer gave the Ernst Cassirer Lectures at the University of Hamburg in 2005, won the 2008 Columbia College Great Teacher Award, and the 2012 Mark van Doren Award, which annually recognizes a professor for “commitment to undergraduate instruction, as well as for humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership.” She is presently finishing a book, Radical Rationalism: The Philosophy of Anne Conway.