Meri Herrero Perez

Meri Herrero is a PhD student in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences and a member of the Rensselaer Astrobiology Research and Education Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Previously, she received a double BS in Physics and Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (where she is from) and an MS in Astrophysics at the Space Sciences Institute of Catalonia.

Meri's research is focused in prebiotic chemistry, specifically in the chemical transformations occurring to delivered organic compounds in impact-induced hydrothermal systems on the Early Earth. In Prof. Shelley's lab, Meri makes use of mass spectrometry techniques to analyze the products of organic reactions while improving the current analytical methods for studying and quantifying these reactions in aqueous solutions containing salts of comparable concentration to seawater. These efforts will help other researchers in prebiotic chemistry to investigate the rich chemistry occurring in realistic environmental conditions.