Heather E. Connell was born and raised in Massachusetts where she studied screenwriting and theatre arts at Salem State College. In 2001, she relocated to Los Angeles and founded Displaced Yankee Productions, an independent film company dedicated to using film as a platform for raising social awareness and activism through entertainment. After making two short films, Choosing Your Course (2002) and Black and White (2004), Heather produced and directed her first feature documentary, the award winning Small Voices: The Stories of Cambodia's Children.

In 2011, Connell set out to make her second documentary feature, the award winning Forget Us Not, which follows the stories of some of the five-million non-Jewish Holocaust survivors including artist Ceija Stojka and is narrated by golden globe winning actor Ron Perlman.

Along with being the Executive Producer and director of Displaced Yankee Productions, Heather serves on the board of directors of the Lineage Dance Company, a contemporary dance company dedicated to raising support and awareness for nonprofit organizations and to making the arts accessible to audiences of all demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Shortly after filming Small Voices: The Stories of Cambodia's Children, Connell founded the Safe Haven Medical Outreach Program. Safe Haven is a non-profit educational and therapeutic outreach program for disabled children in Siem Riep, Cambodia. Safe Haven's mission is to provide a safe environment for children with disabilities, allowing them the opportunity to have access to the educational and therapeutic resources that they need in order to reach their full potential and their highest level of personal independence.

In 2013, Heather Connell was one of GO Magazine's "100 Women We Love".