Heather A. Colley, M.S.

Lead Extramural Research Training Program Director

Training Diversity and Health Equity Office

Education

M.S. State University of New York at Binghamton

B.S. State University of New York at Oswego

A.A.S. State University of New York at Delhi

Contact Info

BG 6700B RM 3122
6700B ROCKLEDGE DR 6908
BETHESDA MD 20892-6908

Biography

Heather Colley is the Lead Research Training and Career Development Program Officer in the Office of Training, Diversity, and Health Equity at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Heather manages a portfolio of training programs that offer a spectrum of opportunities and experiences to individuals at every stage of their careers. Heather is committed to the idea that training programs should be designed to equip scientists with the essential skills, resources, critical thinking, and creativity needed for the genomics landscape. Ms. Colley was also a program director in the Division of Genomic Medicine, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), joining NHGRI in 2007. Her research portfolio included the NHGRI-EBI GWAS Catalog, PhenX Toolkit, PAGE Consortium, IGNITE Consortium, and the NIH Common Fund Undiagnosed Diseases Network. Her research interests focus on ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table in the biomedical workforce and leveraging genomics to improve human health. Ms. Colley received her M.S. in biomedical anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Publications

Morales J, Welter D, Bowler EH, Cerezo M, Harris LW, McMahon AC, Hall P, Junkins HA, Milano A, Hastings E, Malangone C, Buniello A, Burdett T, Flicek P, Parkinson H, Cunningham F, Hindorff LA, MacArthur JAL. A standardized framework for representation of ancestry data in genomics studies, with application to the NHGRI-EBI GWAS Catalog. Genome Biol. 19(1):21. 2018. [PubMed]

MacArthur J, Bowler, E, Cerezo M, Hall P, Hastings E, Junkins H, McMahon A, Milano A, Pendlington ZM, Welter D, Burdett T, Hindorff L, Flicek P, Cunningham F, Parkinson H. The new NHGRI-EBI Catalog of published genome-wide association studies (GWAS Catalog). Nucleic Acids Res, 45(D1): D896-D-901. 2017. [PubMed]

Weitzel KW, Alexander M, Bernhardt BA, Calman N, Carey DJ, Cavallari LH, Field JR, Hauser D, Junkins HA, Levin PA, Levy K, Madden EB, Manolio TA, Odgis J, Orlando LA, Pyeritz R, Wu RR, Shuldiner AR, Bottinger EP, Denny JC, Dexter PR, Flockhart DA, Horowitz CR, Johnson JA, Kimmel SE, Levy MA, Pollin TI, Ginsburg GS; IGNITE Network. The IGNITE network: a model for genomic medicine implementation and research. BMC Med Genomics, 9:1. 2016. [PubMed]

McCarty CA, Huggins W, Aiello AE, Bilder RM, Hariri A, Jernigan TL, Newman E, Sanghera DK, Strauman TJ, Zeng Y, Ramos EM, Junkins HA, PhenX RISING: real world implementation and sharing of PhenX measures. BMC Medical Genomics, 7(1):16. 2014. [PubMed]

Ramos EM, Hoffman D, Junkins HA, Maglott D, Phan L, Sherry ST, Feolo M, Hindorff LA. Phenotype-Genotype Integrator (PheGenI): synthesizing genome-wide association study (GWAS) data with existing genomic resources. European Journal of Human Genetics, 22(1):144-7. 2014. [PubMed]

Welter D, McArthur J, Morales J, Burdett T, Hall P, Junkins H, Klemm A, Flice, P, Manolio T, Hindorff L, Parkinson H. The NHGRI GWAS Catalog, a curated resource of SNP-trait associations. Nucleic Acids Research, 42(Database issue):D1001-6. 2013. [PubMed]

Hamilton CM, Strader LC, Pratt JG, Maiese D, Hendershot T, Kwok R, Hammond JA, Huggins W, Jackman D, Pan H, Nettles DS, Beaty TH, Farrer LA, Kraft P, Marazita ML, Ordovas JM, Pato CN, Spitz MR, Wagener D, Williams M, Junkins HA, Harlan WR, Ramos EM and Haines J. The PhenX Toolkit: get the most from your measures. American Journal of Epidemiology, 174(3):253-60. 2011. [PubMed]

Hindorff LA, Sethupathy P, Junkins HA, Ramos EM, Mehta JP, Collins FS, and Manolio TA. Potential etiologic and functional implications of genome-wide association loci for human diseases and traits. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 106(23):9362-7. 2009. [PubMed]