Both an alumna and faculty member of Stanford University, Merrill worked with Lewis Terman to develop the second and third editions of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales.

As a child she lived at the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children, an orphanage of which her father was the director.

[2] Merrill wrote to Stanford to inquire about their graduate psychology program, but department head Frank Angell sent her a lukewarm reply asking her why she could not attend a school closer to her.

Kuhlmann wrote directly to educational psychology professor Lewis Terman, a well-known intelligence researcher with whom Merrill hoped to work.

[5] In a review of the book, Ohio State University professor Walter Reckless said that her work "gives ample reason to reconsider the factor of the broken-home family, which many sociologists have discounted in recent years, as well as the IQ level in determining delinquency..."[6] Merrill died at her home in 1978.