[2] She is a professor at the Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG) at the University of São Paulo, vice-president of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), and one of five winners of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science in 2009.

[3] When she considered writing a thesis in astrophysics at the time of the Brazilian military government in the 1970s, it was not possible to do it in Brazil: classmates and faculty at the University of São Paulo were being imprisoned or disappearing.

[3] In 1978, Barbuy moved to France and began her doctoral research in Roger Cayrel's group at the Paris Observatory.

Between 2001 and 2005, she played an important role in the international program on the formation of the first stars, led by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

This program obtained detailed information about the chemical composition of stars formed more than 10 billion years ago.