Urkevich obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1997 and went on to teach at Boston University where she held a joint faculty position in the College of Fine Arts, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She was a US senior Fulbright scholar in Kuwait in 2003, after which she officially joined the newly opened American University, serving as the first division head of arts and humanities (dean). She has done extensive fieldwork in the Peninsula, beginning in 1994 when she initially lived in various regions of Saudi Arabia. She has traveled widely throughout the Peninsula and continues to work closely with regional musicians in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the greater Arab World. She has developed courses on Peninsula music and regularly teaches and lectures on Arab as well as western music.