Heidi holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a PhD from the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies. Her doctoral focus on Nazi-era resistance music resulted in a monograph on the push-pull of lyricism and critical distance in the music of Hanns Eisler. This project has led her to apply a similar analytical approach to music and sound in environmental art forms, from novels and films to art exhibitions. Her current work considers vertigo as a somatic, sonic, and metaphorical experience of bodies politic under threat. Heidi is a guest researcher at Linnaeus University in Sweden and a Nonresident Senior Research Fellow with the European Center for Populism Studies.

Heidi has taught literature, German language, film, music and politics, ecocriticism, and creative writing at Westminster College, Duke University, Utah State University, and currently at Linnaeus University in Sweden, where she is a regular guest instructor and writing specialist in graduate courses. She also offers workshops in bridging creative and academic practices.

Heidi has extended her research practice to include curatorial projects, ranging from The Curatorial Thing arts assembly and Climate Thanatology exploration of ecological grief in Copenhagen (SixtyEight Art Institute) to performance productions, workshops, and recent artist interviews as part of the OnCurating Academy in Berlin. She is currently developing a project on radical improvisation as political resistance and attunement to the more-than-human world.