In 2019 Melfo and biology students of the University of the Andes began working with the GLORIA-Andes Project, focusing on the effects of climate change on biodiversity from high-altitude climates. They again face problems being unable to use computers for notes due to a lack of printing ink, and relying on second-hand or donated climbing gear that they store in a CLAP box.

She worked with her cousin, the Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler, to write the song “Despedir a los glaciares”, which is included on the 2017 album Salavidas de hielo and is about the disappearance of the glaciers and the problems that cause it. Also in 2017, she was one of the jury deciding the recipients of the Lorenzo Mendoza Fleury Science Prize.

Melfo officially retired in 2016, but has continued to work through Venezuela’s crisis as other academics, including the majority of her Vida Glacial project team, leave. The remaining scientists face difficulties with their work, primarily with keeping the samples frozen amid blackouts. Though Melfo is disturbed by the disappearance of the glaciers, she knows that with samples collected research can continue for a long time, and also believes that new ecosystems developing on the site of former glaciers will be “beautiful to see”. She has also called the disappearance of glaciers a reminder of humanity’s responsibility to look after the planet and to attempt to slow down climate change.

Melfo disagrees with the Maduro administration. She wrote a famous 2014 letter to Drexler that was widely published in Uruguay, where she explains her feelings towards the crisis in Venezuela, especially the tupamaros of Mérida, and her personal reasons for participating in the 2014 Venezuelan protests.

At the University of the Andes, Melfo has worked in the Department of Physics and as director of the Center for Fundamental Physics. She has contributed to more than twenty scientific publications since the early 1990s.

Melfo was born in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, and moved to Venezuela with her family in 1976 as refugees from dictatorship when she was 11. She later became a naturalized Venezuelan citizen. She studied at the University of the Andes (ULA) in Mérida and received her undergraduate degree in 1989, her master’s degree in 1994, and became a faculty member at ULA whilst studying for a PhD in astrophysics at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy.

Alejandra Melfo (born 26 February 1965) is a Uruguayan-born Venezuelan physicist. She is known for her efforts studying and conserving glaciers, especially the Humboldt Corona, the last glacier in Venezuela.