Patricia M. Heller is a retired American scholar of physics education, and an associate professor emerita at the University of Minnesota.
[2] Heller studied physics, with a minor in chemistry, as an undergraduate at the University of Washington.
As a student, she continued to work there as a physics instructor, and in Detroit, Michigan, as an elementary school science teacher.
She switched to a lecturer position in the School of Physics and Astronomy in 1982 and then, in 1986, returned to the College of Education as an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
[1] Heller was the 2010 recipient of the Robert A. Millikan award of the American Association of Physics Teachers.