Mercedes is the lead education specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, where she leads and contributes to the research, design and execution of innovative education projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. She was postdoctoral research fellow of the Belgian Scientific Research Foundation (FNRS) in 2004 and an honorary researcher at FNRS until 2007. In 2004, she was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Robert Schumann Center at the European University Institute. An expert on institutional reform and social policy, she has co-authored Cashing in on Education: Women, Childcare and Prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean, authored Representing Women? Female Legislators in West European Parliaments (2005) and coedited Democracies in Development: Politics and Reform in Latin America