 In fall 2012 Shepard joined the University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty as a guest professor for the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs.She joined National Public Radio (NPR) in October, 2007, for a three-year appointment as the Ombudsman for the nonprofit public media organization that ended May 31, 2011.In that role, she said on June 21, 2009, that waterboarding, as practiced by Americans on terror captives, should not be called 'torture', although she later mentioned in an interview that "I think that it does... constitute torture."