Lois Pierce is a professor of social work and the director of the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has published extensively in the area of child welfare. Specifically, she has written articles on the role of race and gender in the sexual abuse of children and has examined factors that lead to return home after children have been placed in out-of-home care. She has conducted evaluations for the Missouri Department of Family Services and for several agencies in St. Louis. In addition, her CSAP-funded program, Be A Star, was selected as a program to note and has been replicated by other agencies.

She teaches courses on social work practice and research and in both the BSW and MSW programs.

Dr. Pierce has worked as a psychiatric social worker with preadolescent children and their families. She has also worked as a school social worker in Aurora, Illinois and as a therapist in an adolescent clinic in San Bernardino, California. More recently, she has worked with survivors of incest in groups and in individual therapy.