After studying at the Internado Nacional Barros Arana, he entered the University of Chile as an astronomy student.

[1] Since 1968 he has been an academic of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile, and since 1987 he has been a full professor of that house of studies.

[1] Between 1979 and 1984 he headed the Scientific Project of Search for Supernovas at Cerro El Roble and was part of Project Calán Tololo, a Chilean-American initiative that featured the joint work of the University of Chile with the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, in the search for supernovas.

[2] The Calán Tololo project gave contemporary astrophysics tools for measuring the universe more precisely, calculations that years later would be key for a group of American astronomers to follow these supernova studies,[2] being part of the theory of accelerating expansion of the universe by dark energy.

[2][4][5] Apart from being a professor and being a member of the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies [es] (CATA), he has given astronomical talks to young people to get them interested in science,[6] one of which he did at the boarding school in which he studied.