Elena Manjavacas was born in a farmer’s family in Mota del Cuervo (Cuenca, Spain), a small town in the area of La Mancha. She graduated in 2010 in Physics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). In 2011, she obtained her Master in Astrophysics from the Universidad Complutense and Autonoma de Madrid (Spain). While continuing studies 2011 to 2015 at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Heidelberg, Germany), she completed her PhD thesis in the field of Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs and Exoplanets. Returning to Spain in 2015, she held her first postdoctoral position at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), where she worked on Astronomical Instrumentation. In 2016 she accepted her second postdoctoral position, which brought her to the United States, working at the University of Arizona, where she worked on characterizing the clouds in Brown Dwarfs and Exoplanets’ atmospheres. At the conclusion of her postdoctoral position in late 2018, she transitioned to a position as Staff Astronomer at the W. M. Keck Observatory, in Hawaii, which she held from January 2019 through October 2020. Presently, Dr. Manjavacas resides in Baltimore, MD and is the ESA/AURA Astronomer at STScI for the NIRSpec instrument, onboard the JWST telescope. Elena Manjavacas was born in a farmer’s family in Mota del Cuervo (Cuenca, Spain), a small town in the area of La Mancha. She graduated in 2010 in Physics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). In 2011, she obtained her Master in Astrophysics from the Universidad Complutense and Autonoma de Madrid (Spain). While continuing studies 2011 to 2015 at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Heidelberg, Germany), she completed her PhD thesis in the field of Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs and Exoplanets. Returning to Spain in 2015, she held her first postdoctoral position at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). In 2016 she accepted her second postdoctoral position, working at the University of Arizona, where she worked on characterizing the clouds in Brown Dwarfs and exoplanets. In late 2018, she transitioned to a position as Staff Astronomer at the W. M. Keck Observatory, in Hawaii, which she held from January 2019 through October 2020. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx