Henry La Pierre, also known by his nickname Pete, was born in St. Louis. During his undergraduate studies at Harvard University, he worked with Jared Shaw at the Broad Institute on the synthesis of antibiotics and with Masahiro Murakami at Kyoto University on main-group organometallics.

His graduate work with John Arnold, Robert Bergman, and Dean Toste at the University of California, Berkeley focused on developing a Z-selective alkyne semihydrogenation catalyst. After earning his doctorate, he studied ligand control of reactive low- and high-valent uranium complexes as a postdoctoral scholar with Karsten Meyer at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.

He later served as a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked with Stosh Kozimor on ligand K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopic studies of transuranic complexes.

Since joining Georgia Tech in 2016, his research has been recognized with the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. His group's research is also supported by the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy Heavy Element Chemistry Program.