Yira Hurtado is a chemical engineer graduate from the Faculty of Mines of Colombia National University in 2013. In 2018 she obtained a scholarship to carry out her master’s studies in chemical engineering at the same university, and she graduated with a meritorious thesis in 2020. In 2016, she was awarded a grand in the COLCIENCIAS young researches program, and until 2019 she was a member of the Research Group on Surface Phenomena: Michael Polanyi.
Her research experience is related to the synthesis, characterization, and utilization of nanoparticles for applications in the oil and gas industry with an emphasis on enhance oil recovery techniques. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in chemical engineering at the Université of Sherbrooke, and this time her focus is to produce liquid fuels from contaminated biomass.