Merin is a researcher at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST) where she leads the CST Research Programme in Urban Innovation hosted under the SARChI Chair for Mainstreaming Gender for Energy Security in Africa held by Prof Mark Swilling, is the convenor of the Just and Sustainable Urbanisms module in the Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development, and hosts the CST Weekly Colloquium.

Merin thinks deeply about African urban futures through the perspective of infrastructure, finance, and Africanfuturism storytelling, and has structured her PhD and research project to explore vocabulary as an infrastructure for imagination in the pursuit of just and sustainable urban futures.

Her intellectual project is grounded in her advocacy work as Chairperson of the Stellenbosch Homelessness Forum, for which she was awarded the Stellenbosch University Social Impact Award in 2024, and funding for continued collaboration. She represents South African and regional interests internationally as the only steering group member of the Sustainability Transitions Research Network based in Africa, and she pursues art for transformation through writing as co-founder of The Symbiotes writing group and as a convenor of international working groups: the Art-Science Thematic Group 2025 – 2027 within the STRN and Co-imagining resilient and sustainable African futures through arts-based practices 2025 – 2027 within the Southern African Resilience Academy and Society for Social Ecological Systems.