She graduated with a bachelor's and master's degrees in biology at UPR-RP.[3] Her 1975 master's thesis was titled Changes in selected water quality parameters as influenced by land use patterns in the Espiritu Santo drainage basin.[4] Cuevas completed a Ph.D. in ecology at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) in 1984.[5] She was the first graduate in the field of ecology at IVIC and in Venezuela.[3] Her dissertation was titled Crecimiento de raices finas y su relacion con los procesos de descomposicion de materia organica y liberacion de nutrientes en bosques del alto Rio Negro en el territorio federal Amazonas.[6] She was a postdoctoral fellow with the International Institute of Tropical Forestry.[3]