Kiara Pelissier was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1976. She was raised in the United States in an artistic family.

Kiara began blowing glass in 1996 at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. She continued to study through workshops at Penland, Pilchuck Glass School, Haystack Mountain School, and the Corning Studio as both a student and a teaching assistant.

Kiara received her BFA in Glass from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio in 2000. She received her MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in May 2006. Her work has been displayed in exhibitions in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. She currently lives in Richmond, Virginia.