Born in La Paz, Bolivia on 8/23/1951.   She moved with her family to Brazil/São Paulo in 1959, where she lives to this day.   She is married and has children and grandchildren.   She graduated in Speech Therapy from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo in 1974.   She has a master's degree (1985) and a doctorate (1992) in Social Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo.   She is a retired full professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, where she worked from 1986 to 2012.   She is the author of three books, several book chapters and articles on the nature and treatment of stuttering.   She has worked as a clinical speech therapist specialized in the treatment of speech fluency problems since 1974.   Since 2000, she has been providing free group therapy to treat people who stutter and to improve speech therapists' skills in treating speech fluency problems.   She has experience in the area of Education, with an emphasis on teaching and learning, having worked mainly with the topics of research methodology, philosophy of science, and speech fluency problems: diagnosis and treatment.    She graduated as a Kundalini Yoga instructor from the 3HO Yoga Institute of Brazil in 2002. She has been practicing Yoga since 1978.