 Employed by INAH, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, as curator of the Teotihuacan hall at the National Museum of Anthropology, she produced well over a hundred articles, books, and translations, both scholarly and popular, on a variety of topics, but most importantly on ancient architecture, Aztec symbolism, pre-Columbian views of what we would call nature, the importance of caves to Mesoamerican cosmology, and Indian cultural survivals.Heyden was a contributing editor of the influential "Handbook of Latin American Studies" (1961–68).All her writings were solidly based on archaeological fieldwork in many regions of Mexico.