Rela Mintz Geffen, professor of sociology and the sixth president of Baltimore Hebrew University, came to BHU from Gratz College in 2000. At Gratz she was professor of sociology and Dean for Academic Affairs. She was a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard and is a fellow of the Center for Jewish Community Studies. She has also taught at The Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Jewish Studies, where she was a Skirball Fellow, Boston University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Bryn Mawr College.
Geffen has written more than forty scholarly articles, co-edited three books and co-authored (with Daniel J. Elazar) The Conservative Movement in Judaism. She has served as president of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry and as program and membership vice-president of the Association for Jewish Studies, the major organization of professors of Jewish Studies in North America.