Rate My Professor Eric Heuer

Eric D. Heuer is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Psychology Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, part of the Social Sciences Division in the College of Arts and Sciences. He joined the faculty in fall 2011 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 following tenure. Heuer serves as Chair of the neuroscience major committee and has held positions such as Chair of the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate and representative in Faculty Congress. Additionally, he maintains an adjunct research faculty appointment at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University. Heuer earned his B.S. in Neuroscience and Psychology from Allegheny College in 2003 and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Emory University in 2010. He participates in the UH Hilo Speakers Bureau, offering public lectures on topics including Alzheimer’s Disease: What do we really know?, Senility, Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease: They’re Not the Same Thing?, and Neurocognitive Development: A Developing Brain is Not Just Smaller.

Heuer's research investigates connections between brain structure and function using multiple methodologies. His academic interests encompass developmental neuropsychology, particularly the consequences of early brain injury in nonhuman primates, and comparative studies of age-related neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. His scholarship focuses on aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and age-related alterations in cognitive function. He has authored and co-authored numerous professional publications, including "Acoustic startle and prepulse inhibition deficits in adult rhesus monkeys following neonatal hippocampal lesions" (2023, with Andrew Kazama and Jocelyne Bachevalier), "Amyloid-Related Imaging Abnormalities in an Aged Squirrel Monkey with Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy" (2017), "Nonhuman Primate Models of Alzheimer-Like Cerebral Proteopathy" (2012), "Working memory for temporal order is impaired after selective neonatal hippocampal lesions in adult rhesus macaques" (2013), and "Neonatal hippocampal lesions in rhesus macaques alter the structure and function of the hippocampus in adulthood" (2011). Heuer teaches undergraduate courses such as PSY 100 Survey of Psychology, PSY 214 Research Methods, PSY 350 Cognitive Psychology, PSY 352 Introduction to Biopsychology, and advanced courses in neuroscience, aging, and development. He developed PSY 431 Brain Disease: Neurobiological mechanisms of central nervous system diseases and disorders, first offered formally in spring 2014 as a writing-intensive course.