García-Garibay received his B.S. from the University of Michoacán, Mexico, in 1982. After completing a combined degree in Chemistry, Biology, and Pharmacy, García-Garibay went on to get a PhD degree in Chemistry at the University of British Columbia, where he joined the group of John Scheffer.  After that, he joined the group of Nicholas Turro as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University.
García-Garibay received an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 2015.