Rita S. Heimes

Professor

Rita Heimes is Research Director at the International Association of Privacy Professionals, where she also serves as the in-house Data Protection Officer. Rita is an attorney and academic with many years of experience in the fields of privacy, information security and intellectual property law. In her role as Research Director at the IAPP, Rita helps to promote the privacy profession through empirical and qualitative research on privacy functions globally as well as through outreach to academic institutions developing the next generation of privacy and security professionals. As the DPO, Rita facilitates and oversees the IAPP’s data protection policies and practices.

Prior to joining the IAPP, Rita was a law professor and academic dean at the University of Maine School of Law, where she directed the Center for Law + Innovation and developed the nation’s first Privacy Pathways program and one of the first intellectual property clinics. She also spent many years in private practice with law firms in Seattle, Boulder and Portland (Maine). Rita remains an active scholar, and still coordinates and teaches in the Information Privacy Summer Institute at Maine Law.