A sociologist and demographer, she served as the President of El Colegio de México from 2015 to September 2025. She holds a BA in Sociology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and an MA in Demography from El Colegio de México. In 2004, she earned her PhD in Sociology from Brown University. She has been a research professor at the Center for Demographic, Urban, and Environmental Studies (CEDUA) at El Colegio de México since 2003 and served as the center's director between 2009 and 2015. She has completed research stays at various academic institutions: the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2007–2008), the University of Chicago (2025), and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2026).

Her research focuses on three primary areas: i) International migration in the Americas; ii) Transitions to adulthood in Mexico and Latin America; iii) The intersection of demographic dynamics, education, and public policy. She has integrated a cross-cutting gender perspective across her research. Her books, articles, and general publications are centered on these three lines of work.

She has collaborated on numerous research projects within her fields of expertise. Currently, she is the Co-Principal Investigator for the Mesoamerican Migration Project (El Colegio de México and Brown University) and the 2021 Recent Immigration Survey of the Latin American Migration Project (El Colegio de México, Brown University, and the Universidad de la República). From 2017 to 2020, she coordinated the project "Access to Social Rights and Return Migration to Mexico" (El Colegio de México and the National Human Rights Commission).

She served as the President of the Mexican Society of Demography (2011–2012) and founded and directed the publication Coyuntura Demográfica: Revista sobre los procesos Demográficos en México hoy (2011–2014). From its founding in 2017 until January 2025, she was director of Otros Diálogos, an open-access electronic journal published by El Colegio de México.

She has participated in several international scientific and academic committees, most notably: The Scientific Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna (2016–2022); The Academic Advisory Board of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford (since 2021); The Scientific Council of the Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (since 2024). She has also served as a member of Citizen Councils for various Mexican government agencies on issues of migration, population policy, and childhood.

She has collaborated with international organizations as a committee member and researcher for UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, and UN Women. Key highlights include her role as Senior Research Advisor for the 2023 State of World Population report and her membership since 2024 on the UNESCO High-Level Advisory Board for social development. She has also participated in various migration policy working groups, serving as co-chair of the North and Central America Task Force on Migration (2020–2023).

She is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNII) (Level III) and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. A former Fulbright-García Robles scholar, she received the Gabino Barreda Medal from UNAM in 1993 and the Horace Mann Medal from Brown University in 2018. Since April 2024, she has served as a member of the Board of Governors of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and as of February 2025, she is a member of El Colegio Nacional, a distinguished public institution dedicated to the dissemination of scientific, artistic, and humanistic culture.