Emily Askew earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Smith College, graduating cum laude. She received the Master of Arts degree from the University of Northern Iowa with a specialty in Mental Health Counseling. She received her Ph.D. in theology from Vanderbilt University. As a Fulbright scholar she studied the challenges of Muslim immigration in France and Germany and for the last 10 years has taught regularly at the US/Mexico border studying issues of immigration and the Christian witness. In 2009, she and a group of five faculty members at Lexington Theological Seminary restructured their traditional residential curriculum to become an online, hybrid competency-based curriculum.