degree at Hope College in Holland, Michigan in 1964, and his PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1969.

Hieftje was named a Distinguished Professor in 1985, and entered emeritus status in 2018.

[2] Research in the Hieftje Group mainly focuses on studying and improving the mechanisms and methods of atomic emission and absorption, fluorescence, and mass spectrometry.

Some areas of interest to his research are: finding new applications of lasers, linear response theory, near-infrared correlation methods of analysis, time-resolved luminescence, and fiber-optic sensors.

Perhaps, the most well-known is “Chemical Separations and Measurements - The Theory and Practice of Analytical Chemistry” with colleagues Dennis G. Peters and John M. Hayes published by Saunders in Philadelphia in 1974.