Camacho was born in Bogotá. In 1966, she started her studies at the National University of Colombia, where she received her degree in physics in 1970. Camacho then travelled to Germany and obtained a Diplom-physikerin at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, in 1973. In 1977 she was awarded a Dr. rer. nat. by the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, West Germany. She was the first Colombian woman to obtain a doctorate in physics.