Mercedes Prieto is part of the scientific staff of Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and a permanent teacher at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain). She is a specialist on Extragalactic Astronomy, and our main collaborator in developing semi-analytical models of galaxy evolution. Mercedes has recently spent two days working with us.

Mercedes' research interests concern the galactic formation and evolution in general, and she has developed several studies relative to the lenticular galaxies, the surface brightness profiles of spiral galaxies, and the general photometric properties of different galactic types at low and high redshift. In particular, Mercedes is now centering her research on extremelly red objects at high redshift, and she is studing the role of major mergers in the building up of the most massive early-type galaxies through semi-analytical models, in collaboration with us.