[4] In the late 1970s, El Salvador was facing worsening political conflicts and Lehrer's father urged her to leave the country and complete her undergraduate studies in the United States.
She intended studying international relations or urban planning, and her senior thesis examined the impact that dams in El Salvador had had on communities and habitats.
She completed her degree at Tufts and applied to the landscape design program at Harvard;[4] There, she studied under Peter Walker and was influenced by the work of Ian McHarg and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.
[1] She is the founder and president of Mia Lehrer + Associates,[5] a landscape architecture firm based in Los Angeles, California.
[11] In 2015, Lehrer served as one of six selection committee members for the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.
[12] Lehrer was appointed to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on September 24, 2020, and was confirmed by the Council on October 21, 2020, for a term lasting until June 30, 2024.
[14] By 2022, Lehler designed the gardens of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, scheduled to open in 2025.