Daughter of the French scholar Giuseppe Merlino and the sinologist and director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing Annamaria Palermo,[1][2] she graduated from high school.

Although there is no information on the university she attended, various online[3] biographies report that Merlino graduated with honors in political science with a thesis in international law on the Community Charter of Fundamental Rights of Workers.

In 1997, she edited and hosted ten episodes of the column on the history of the twentieth century, the sign of the command of the program La Storia siamo noi.

She was the author of a dictionary of community terms, distributed in 250,000 copies with the newspapers Il Mattino and La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno.

Moderator of numerous conferences and public meetings, over the years she has interviewed the main international players in political and economic life.