Dora Lisa Rosenbaum was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala in 1979. She immigrated to the United States, with her family at a very young age, and grew up in upstate New York.
After obtaining her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University, in 2001, Dora Lisa moved to Italy, where she lived and worked for three years. While in Venice, she worked at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, a printmaking school, and had both a solo exhibition and exhibited a collaborative piece. She then moved to Rome, where she apprenticed for a paper artist for one year and then received her Masters degree in printmaking at the Libera Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. In 2004 she had her second solo exhibition in Italy, this time in downtown Rome. Following this show Dora Lisa moved back to the U.S. to continue her studies and is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in printmaking at Indiana University.