Dr. Eleanor Moody-Shepherd served as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean, Dean of Students, and Professor of Women Studies at New York Theological Seminary. Her areas of research and teaching include domestic violence, women in the Bible, and women in leadership. She retired as the Professor of Women Studies, Emerita. She has led international study seminars in the Holy Land, Africa, and other parts of the world. She co-leads an annual trip to the south to study the history of the Civil Rights Movement and Southern Religion. She serves as the Director of the Eleanor Moody-Shepherd Women Center for Women in Ministry which was named in her honor as one of the founders of the Center. Rev. Moody-Shepherd is an ordained teaching Elder of the Presbyterian Church, USA. She is an honorable retired from the Presbytery of Hudson River.

She travels annually to Ghana, West Africa, and other countries on the continent. She is learning and has embraced traditional African culture and religion. She offers opportunities for other diasporas to travel with her to have cultural exchanges and help to empower women and children.

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 continues to be a champion for the underserved by working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.