Emily Dierkes Rohrer was born in New York City in 1984. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Syracuse University in 2006 with a BFA in Painting, receiving the Hiram Gee Senior Painting Award. She spent her junior year at the Syracuse campus in Florence, studying art history and antique painting techniques. In Spring 2011, she received a Kempinski Young Arts Support Fellowship and was Artist-in-Residence at the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel in Moscow, Russia.

She has shown in galleries in Baltimore, Syracuse, Greenbelt, and abroad, in Dundee, Scotland, Florence, Italy, and Moscow, Russia.

Emily received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art from Towson University in May 2017.

She currently lives and works in Baltimore, MD, with her husband, two children, and two chihuahuas, where she maintains a studio practice and teaches high school studio art.