Iris Rosa Santiago was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and raised in East Chicago, Indiana. She is a Professor Emerita in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies and the former and founding Director of the African American Dance Company (1974–2017) at Indiana University Bloomington.

Her specializations include teaching dance technique, history and choreography from the perspective of the African American and African Diaspora and bridging the contemporary modern dance genre with African diaspora dance forms. Rosa has studied, researched, presented and taught dance in Ghana, Dominican Republic, Ivory Coast, Havana, Matanzas and Guantanamo, and Santiago, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and Beijing, China. She has worked as a choreographer, dancer and actor on many community projects in Indianapolis at the Phoenix Theatre, Civic Theatre, Madame Walker Theatre Center and the Jazz Kitchen.

Rosa is the artistic director of Sancocho: Music and Dance Collage and Seda Negra/Black Silk, ensembles dedicated to researching and performing African influenced dance and music from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Rosa opened Iris Rosa Dance Studio in May 2022 in Indianapolis to expose the community to the rich diversity of dance and music from the African and African American diaspora.