Lia Rousset

Lia Rousset was only 18 when she competed in kayak canoeing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, missing her high school prom in Newport Harbor, California to do so. Rousset competed in both the K2 and K4 events. She competed at the Junior World Championships in 1995 and the World Championships in 1997-98.

Rousset attended U Mass Boston, graduating in 2005. While in school she worked as a rowing coach at Wellesley College and a boatbuilder at Harvard. She also studied earth block construction at Auroville Earth Institute in India, and later (2009) obtained an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She then pursued a certificate in permaculture at Stateline Farm Beginnings near Chicago.

Rousset has had a variety of professional vocations, including as a craftswoman, building aesthetic and functional objects such as flutes and boats; to an artist, creating place-and-experience based environments. She later ran the Angelic Organics Learning Center in Caledonia, Illinois (which runs Stateline Farm Beginnings), helping people learn about organic farming. She also worked as an adjunct instructor at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.