Lizana Pierce is duty-stationed in Colorado and serves as the principal engineering expert for the Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs on deployment programs. Ms. Pierce is responsible for implementing the Office’s Deployment Programs: Technical Assistance; Financial Assistance; and Education and Capacity Building.

Lizana has more than 25 years of experience in energy technologies, project development, and management, and has dedicated 20 of those years to assisting Indian tribes in developing their energy resources and building their human capacity to realize their energy visions. Prior to joining the Office of Indian Energy in 2015, Ms. Pierce was the project manager for the Tribal Energy Program under DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a position she held since the program’s inception in 2002. In that capacity, she solicited tribal clean energy projects and administered the resulting grants and agreements as well as implemented the program’s technical assistance and education and outreach efforts. Prior to overseeing the EERE Tribal Energy Program, Ms. Pierce worked in several of the research and development programs at DOE, including the solar, wind, and biomass programs.

Before joining DOE, she held a number of engineering positions in the defense and aerospace industries and was fortunate to have been involved in the integrated science payload flown on the Tethered Satellite Shuttle Mission (STS-46). Ms. Pierce holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University, and she pursued a Master’s in Business Administration through the University of Northern Colorado.