Dr. Heller is Professor and Head of the Department of Disability and Human Development of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Director of the University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities in Illinois. Dr. Heller authored over 150 publications, including 2 books (plus 2 in press) and 4 edited journal issues, and presented over 200 papers at conferences on aging and I/DD. She serves on the boards of the Association of University Centers on Disability (AUCD), where she is president-elect, and the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities (IASSID). She served on the boards of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) and the European Course on Mental Retardation, was president of AAIDD’s Gerontology Division and was a delegate to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging. In 2008 she received the Lifetime Research Acheivement Award from the IASSID Special Interest Group in Aging and Intellectual Disabilities.