Heidi J Imker

Heidi J Imker serves as Professor and Director of Research Data Service at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's University Library, holding the endowed Elaine and Allen Avner Professorship. Her dual role combines academic leadership with operational management of institutional research data infrastructure.

Her research focuses on data curation, molecular biology databases, and research data management, evidenced by her fingerprint analysis showing 100% relevance to Data Curation and strong connections to Enzyme Biochemistry (62%), RuBisCO research (57%), and Data Repository systems (50%). She investigates database sustainability, data sharing practices, and the evolution of molecular biology resources.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a clear trajectory from foundational database studies (2016-2018) toward contemporary research data infrastructure challenges (2021-2024), with increasing emphasis on machine learning workflows, agricultural data integration, and institutional repository advocacy. Her work bridges library science, bioinformatics, and computational research support.

Dr. Imker leads the Research Data Service unit, which develops institutional data management solutions and supports researchers across disciplines. Her team's projects include curation of the historic Morrow Plots agricultural dataset and implementation of reproducible machine learning workflows.