[1][2] Ramírez was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where her mother was a medical researcher and her father a civil engineer.
Awarded a master's degree in 1978,[4] she earned a doctorate in 1988 at the University of Chicago, where she wrote a dissertation on Mexican muralists of the 1920s.
[5] Ramirez began her career in Puerto Rico, where she served as assistant director of the Ponce Museum of Art,[2] and director of the Museo de Antropología, Historia y Arte at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras campus from 1985 to 1988.
[9] With MFAH director Peter C. Marzio, she founded the International Center for the Arts of the Americas that same year.
[10][11] Ramírez served on the jury that selected Carlos Martiel for the El Museo del Barrio’s inaugural $50,000 Maestro Dobel Tequila Latinx Art Prize in 2023.