Elsa Garagarza was born in Monterrey, Mexico. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in the field of architecture from ITESM (Monterrey, Mexico) and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Academy of Arts University. She moved to the United States in 2001 in the hopes of finding a career in the animation industry and got her big break in 2004 when Nickelodeon hired her to work on Avatar: The Last Airbender. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California.