Bas Heijman was born on 21 July 1958 in Heerlen. After finishing secondary school (Atheneum, Stedelijk Lyceum en Havo, Maastricht), he began his study Molecular Sciences at the Agricultural University of Wageningen in September 1976. After a few years of teaching at the School for horticulture in Nijmegen he started in 1987 his PhD-research at the Technical University in Eindhoven. His PhD-thesis was about the stability of titanium dioxide pigments in water based paints.

In 1991 he started at Kiwa water Research in Nieuwegein with research on beneficial application of drinking water sludge. Other research topics were adsorption on activated carbon, ion exchange, ultrafiltration and nanofiltration.

In 2003 he joined the group of professor Hans van Dijk for two days a week as a teacher and researcher. His main research fields are membrane filtration and new treatment concepts for drinking water production.

In 2009 he accepted a full time position as assistant professor.