P. Bryan Heidorn's areas of research include natural language processing, text mining for metadata and information retrieval, particularly in biodiversity literature, and museum informatics. Heidorn became the Director of the School of Information when the School of Information Resources and Library Science (SIRLS) merged with the School of Information Science, Technology and Arts (SISTA) in July 2015. From 2009 to 2015 he was the SIRLS Director. Dr. Heidorn stepped down as Director in January 2019 and now serves as the Associate Dean of Research and the Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Affairs. Prior to coming to the UA, Heidorn was a faculty member of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For the last two years he also served as a program manager of the Division of Biological Infrastructure at the National Science Foundation. Bryan served in a number of posts including President, VP and Grants Committee Chair of the JRS Biodiversity Foundation which funds work in Africa and South America for biodiversity informatics projects for 7 years ending 2013. He has served to several years on the Organization for Tropical Studies Science and Informatics Committees. He is currently the the Chair of the Informatics Committee and on the OTS Board of Directors.