Susi Koref-Santibañez born on 24 April 1930 in Santiago, Chile.[1] She was educated at the University of Chile Faculty of Medicine, where she obtained an MD in 1954.[1]
Having become an assistant in biology at the University of Chile Faculty of Medicine in 1950, she remained in the position after obtaining her MD.[1] She was promoted to research associate in 1966. She also became an associate professor in 1964.[1] She later served as the subrogate director of the university's Department of Genetics and Biology from 1969 to 1970.[1] She earned several grants for her academic research, including from the British Council (1957), the University of Chile (1958–1959); the International Atomic Energy Agency (1966), and the government of Italy (1967).[1]
She was a recurring participant of the International Congress of Genetics, contributing to the Proceedings of the X, XI, and XII congresses of 1958, 1963, and 1968.[1] In 1970,[2] she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship "for a study of behavior and population genetics of Drosophila".[1] She revised Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft's 1990 edition of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's Philosophie zoologique.[3]
In her book Mujeres chilenas, Sonia Montecino cited her as a pioneer in Chile women scientists.[4] In 1993, William R. Rice and Ellen E. Hostert cited her and C. H. Waddington's 1958 article on an experiment of inbreeding of Drosophila melanogaster as an example of sampling drift.[5]
