Kathleen Herles was born in the Queens borough of New York City. Her parents are from Lima, Peru. She has studied ballet, tap, jazz, drama, piano, and voice. She was discovered by talent manager Shirley Grant of Shirley Grant Management at a talent and modeling convention when she was 4 years old. Herles is best known for being the original voice of Dora on Dora the Explorer for the first four seasons.
In 2007, Herles was nominated for an Imagen Award for Best Television Actress. She was nominated in 2007 and 2008 for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Performance in a Youth/Children’s Series or Special. Herles’ final time providing the voice of Dora, along with the original cast of Go, Diego, Go! was in the feature-length TV special, Diego’s Great Polar Bear Rescue, which aired on September 18, 2009.
She left her role to pursue her schooling and graduated from Pace University in 2012.
