GSEP Spotlight: Mia Pierson (MA ’09)
The GSEP Spotlight Series highlights students and alumni whose journeys reflect Purpose, Service, and Leadership in action. In this spotlight, we feature Mia Pierson (MA ’09), a licensed marriage and family therapist, clinical leader, and educator whose work in community mental health and youth services reflects a lifelong commitment to equity, compassion, and impact.
Mia Pierson’s journey into the mental health profession was born from personal experience and a deep desire to support others navigating hardship. Growing up in a single-parent household with an incarcerated parent, Mia developed an early passion for helping those facing systemic challenges and emotional adversity.
That passion led her to Pepperdine University’s MA in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy program, where she graduated in 2009. Her practicum placement at Exodus Recovery in Los Angeles, serving clients with both substance use and mental health diagnoses, ignited a strong sense of purpose—one that continues to guide her work today.
“I’ve spent the last 10 years in community mental health, working with unhoused adults and transitional-aged youth,” Mia shares. “I’ve served as a clinician, a clinical supervisor, and eventually a clinical director—all roles that shaped who I am as a person and a therapist.”
Mia’s most impactful role to date was serving as Clinical Director at Youth Emerging Strong (YES), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit operating a Runaway Homeless Youth shelter and transitional living programs. There, she helped young people learn both practical life skills and tools for navigating trauma, grief, and mental health crises.
“It was a privilege to help a young person learn to live independently—whether that meant teaching them how to do laundry or something more severe like managing their passive suicidal ideations,” she reflects. “We gave them more than a shelter; we gave them a community—a YES family they could always count on.”
Today, Mia continues her service as Behavioral Health Manager for The Local Children’s Board of Howard County, Maryland, where she works to expand access to mental health services in public schools. She also gives back to the Pepperdine community as a member of the adjunct faculty for the online psychology program at GSEP.
Mia’s work is a powerful example of how purpose-driven leadership, clinical excellence, and lived experience can come together to create lasting change for individuals and communities alike.