[2] De Loera did his undergraduate studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, earning a B.S.
After earning a master's degree from Western Michigan University a year later, and another master's degree in 1993 from Cornell University, he finished his doctorate from Cornell in 1995 under the supervision of Bernd Sturmfels.
[2] He served on the scientific advisory board for the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) through 2021.
[4] In 2014, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society "for contributions to discrete geometry and combinatorial optimization as well as for service to the profession, including mentoring and diversity".
[5] In 2019 he was named a SIAM Fellow "for contributions to discrete geometry and optimization, polynomial algebra, and mathematical software".