Yahaira is a Civil Engineer in Mineral Processes from Universidad de Antofagasta, with a PhD in Mineral Process Engineering from the same University. She has expertise in the fields of  Green solvents applied in hydrometallurgy, electronic waste recycling and thermodynamic modeling of electrolytic systems. Her main areas of interest are Circular economy, environmental remediation and thermodynamics of multicomponent systems.

Yahaira currently works as Postdoctoral Researcher in the Environmental rehabilitation and Ecosystem Dynamics Line of Research at SMI-ICE-Chile.