Published in Probe Volume 1(1-2): Spring-Summer 1991
Dr. Stephen Heller is the Informatics Project Leader for USDA's
Plant Genome Research Program. Reporting directly to the Program
Director, Dr. Jerry Miksche, Dr. Heller manages the informatics
portion of the program, primarily activities of cooperators and NAL
staff. A major activity now underway is the development of a plant
genome database system, which will provide users with genome data
on four plant species--wheat, pine, corn, and soybean.
Dr. Heller has been a research scientist in USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) since 1985. Before assuming his current position, Dr. Heller was a member of the Systems Research Laboratory. Responsibilities included developing and coordinating agency-wide scientific database, modeling, and expert system programs; and developing a pesticide properties database and expert systems for evaluating analytical chemistry data.
From 1989-1990, on a leave of absence from ARS, Dr. Heller served as director of quality control for Scitechinform, a UK-USSR joint venture of Maxwell Communications and VINITI.
Before coming to ARS, from 1973-1983, Dr. Heller worked for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a project manager for a multi-agency, multi-organization, NIH/EPA Chemical Information System (CIS), which served over 2,200 users in 22 countries. In 1976, in recognition of his contributions to the agency, he received EPA's Gold Medal.
Dr. Heller previously served as a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, from 1970-1973, and as a chemist for the U.S. Army from 1967-1969. During his career, he has served with the U.S. House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment (1979- 1980) and held the position of Lady Davis Visiting Professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1981).
He is an internationally well-known authority in scientific numeric and factual databases, and in chemical information. Dr. Heller is presently chairman of the IUPAC Committee on Chemical Databases and an American Chemical Society (ACS) XOMP Division Councilor. He serves on the editorial boards of various journals, including the Editorial Advisory Board for Computer Software. During the past 20 years, Dr. Heller has published over 130 papers and books, and has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and scholarships. He is a member of various professional organizations, including the ACS, IEEE, ASMS, AAAS, and Sigma Xi.
Dr. Heller received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.