Born to the family of president of Chile Aníbal Pinto, she obtained her medical degree at the University of Chile and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship as part of her postdoctoral research, and she later became known as a pioneer in physiological psychology, with her work as an academic at the University of Chile including her organization of the first physiological psychology course and several of the university's psychology laboratories.
[3][1] In 1961, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, allowing her to continue her postdoctorate studies at Stanford University.
[3][1] She also started the country's first physiological psychology research laboratory, the Department of Physiology and Biophysics' Laboratorio de Psicología Fisiológica, as well as several of the university's psychology laboratories.
[3][1] Her professor title was revoked after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, but she still supervised thesis work afterwards.
[1] During her stay in the United States, she married sociologist Eduardo Hamuy Berr in 1948, and they later had two children.