Joanne Pierce Misko, Ex-Nun Who Made F.B.I. History, Dies at 83

She and Susan Malone were sworn in together in 1972 as the first female agents, only months after the bureau opened the door to women.


Joanne Pierce Misko in about 1972, the year she became a special agent for the F.B.I. FBI

By Clay Risen
Published Dec. 19, 2024
Updated Dec. 20, 2024, 9:16 a.m. ET

Joanne Pierce Misko, a former Roman Catholic nun who in 1972 became one of the first two women sworn in as special agents for the F.B.I., breaking the bureau’s longstanding bar against women in frontline law-enforcement roles, died on Friday in Wheatfield, N.Y., east of Niagara Falls. She was 83.

Her brother James Pierce confirmed the death, in a hospital, from a lung infection.

Mrs. Misko had spent 10 years as a member of the religious order the Sisters of Mercy in western New York before deciding to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a researcher in 1970, one of the only jobs available to women there at the time.


Mrs. Misko with family members in 1966, when she was a Catholic nun. She spent 10 years as a member of the Sisters of Mercy in western New York. via James Pierce

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