In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate students, Umer organizes seminars and conferences with universities and museums on a national and international level. Her research interests include the study of ancient civilizations and religions, predominantly in the South Asian region. In 2016, Umer received a PhD from Lahore College for Women with a dissertation on the religious beliefs of the Indus Valley people. In early 2017, as a recipient of a Charles Wallace Fellowship, she probed this topic further at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London. In particular, she studied the cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia to see if this civilization may have shared religious beliefs with the Indus Valley culture, in addition to their known trading connections.