Heather earned her PhD in Math at the University of Texas, and has taught for more than 25 years at several universities. She began as an undergraduate instructor at Indiana University, was a TA and Instructor at University of Texas, was a VIGRE postdoctoral professor at The Ohio State University, and then a postdoctoral professor at The University of Tennessee. She also has a physics background and her research lies at the interface of mathematics and the real world. Some areas she worked within are: developing and using advanced math to better understand how groundwater flows in various subsurface layers of the Earth, how different species compete for food and space and how that affects whether or not they can coexist or go extinct, how to better design fuel cells for optimal efficiency, and how to best structure drug treatment timing for HIV patients, and more. She currently homeschools her son and is learning about machine learning and restorative ecology.