She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a dissertation entitled "Deranged Doctors and Panicked Patients: The Doctor-Patient Relationship in Fin de Siècle Literature." President of the Maryland / DC Metro AATG, Dr. Sheffer also focuses on pedagogy through the teaching of film and German for professional purposes in the basic language classroom. Her current research looks at the intersection of medicine and science in modern Austrian literature. Courses Taught