She also teaches at the undergraduate college and with the Bard Prison Initiative. She earned the Ph.D. in History at Columbia University. Her research up to now has been on the impact of Christian missions on African families and gender dynamics, and has appeared as chapters in a variety of edited volumes as well in The Gender of Piety: Family, Faith, and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe (Ohio University Press, 2015.) Since 2007, she has been Co-Editor of the journal Social Sciences & Missions (Brill.) A former high school teacher, Dr. Urban-Mead now has a far-flung network of former Bard MAT history students who teach in both public and private schools from California to Virginia.