Since 1993, Dr. Joan Beder has been a professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, with faculty responsibility for teaching diverse courses in the MSW/PhD curriculum specializing in practice, health/mental health, human behavior and family practice, grief and bereavement. She has written numerous articles, developed numerous presentations, and taught extensively on death and dying, hospice care, and specifically the affects of cancer and AIDS on individuals, their families and the medical personnel who care for them. Her books include Community Health Care in Cuba (2009), Voices of Bereavement: A Casebook for Grief Counselors (2004) and Hospital Social Work - The Interface of Social Work and Caring (2006). In addition to all this, she has continued the private counseling practice she started in 1984, and has spent many summers volunteering at the Family Unity AIDS Camp at Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Camp and the William Birch Family (AIDS) Camp in Putnam Valley, NY.
In recent years, Dr. Beder's research into trauma and the grieving process turned to the experience of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She has added Military Medicine and Military Psychology to the extensive list of journals for which she has written articles. Last year, she developed courses on social work with soldiers and their families for the Wurzweiler and the Boston Schools of Social Work.