Dr. Yvette Flores was born in Colon, Panama, raised in San Jose, Costa Rica, and migrated to the USA in 1965. She was educated in the public schools of South Central Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Her interests in psychology emerged from the challenges the process of migration posed to her family.

Dr. Flores obtained a B.A degree in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1970. She pursued a Master's Degree in Community-Clinical Psychology at C.S.U. Long Beach and completed a Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology at U.C. Berkeley in 1982.

For the past two decades, Dr. Flores has worked as a research psychologist, university professor, and licensed psychologist. She has done postdoctoral work in health psychology, in particular substance abuse treatment outcome research and intimate partner violence. Her current research examines intimate partner violence among Mexicans on both sides of the border. She is also part of a NIA funded study of care giving among spouses and adult children of Anglo and Latino elderly with dementia. Her publications reflect her life's work of bridging clinical psychology and Chicano/Latino studies, as she foregrounds gender, ethnicity, and sexualities in her clinical, teaching, and research practices. She is currently a Full Professor in the Chicana/o Studies Program at UC Davis.

Dr. Flores is the mother of two young adults and a passionate traveler.