Meranda is Northern Paiute and Mexican-American. She earned her PhD at the University of California, Riverside in Native American Studies. Her doctoral work focused on how several Native women basket weavers have used basketry to express their sovereignty.

Meranda is at the Field Museum as Post Doctoral Fellow for the Native American Hall renovation. She is working on curating stories that could be told in the new hall, as well as provide feedback on how the museum can work more seamlessly with Indigenous people. Meranda is dedicated to having Native people tell their own stories and to fix the inaccurate portrayals that people have about our communities.