Heidi Ballew

University of Houston

Heidi Ballew, PhD, is a Research Liaison Officer with the University of Houston Institute for Ecological Resilience (UH IER) within the Division of Energy & Innovation. Her work focuses on research development, broader impacts, strategic partnership building, and the design of systems that translate research into community and societal outcomes. She supports interdisciplinary initiatives spanning environmental resilience, workforce development, community engagement, and research ecosystem development.

Dr. Ballew’s approach integrates competitive intelligence, funding landscape analysis, and systems-level research pipeline design to help align institutional strengths with emerging funding priorities and community needs. She regularly facilitates collaborative workshops, ideation sessions, and cross-sector engagement efforts that support proposal development, strategic alignment, and shared learning across research communities.

She holds a PhD in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University and has experience spanning academic research, science communication, grantsmanship training, and research development strategy. As an ARIS Research Impact Community of Practice Facilitator, she is particularly interested in approaches that support co-creation, collective sensemaking, and the advancement of research impact practice across institutions.