About QMMS

Eleanor Moody-Shepherd is the former Academic Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Students and Professor of Women’s Studies at New York Theological Seminary. Her areas of research and teaching include domestic violence, women in the Bible, and women in leadership.

She regularly leads study trips to Africa and other parts of the world. She also co-leads an annual trip to the south to study the history of the Civil Rights Movement and Southern Religion. She is retired from the Hudson River Presbytery, Presbyterian USA where she served as a pastor. Dr. Moody-Shepherd retired from New Theological Seminary in June 2016 and now serves as Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies and Co-Director of the Women’s Center. The Women’s Center was re-named in her honor. She is one of the founding members of the Center established in 1988. Dr. Moody-Shepherd grew up in Alabama and learned to appreciate the power of living and struggling on the margin. She gained insight, strength, sensitivity, and experience through her participation in the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South during the 1950s and 1960s. This tumultuous period helped her to develop the passion that motivates her to use justice as a guiding principle in her life’s work.

She attended Tuskegee University, Alabama State University, earned degrees from the State University of New York (AAS, 1971), Vassar College (BA, 1974), Long Island University (MS, 1981), New York Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1992), and Teachers College Columbia University (Ed. D, 2000).