April Powers

IT Policy and Compliance Administrator Harvard Medical School

April Powers graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s in computer programming in 2012 and earned her master‚ in info assurance and security in 2015. Since then she has been pursuing a doctorate in info assurance and security. Her school is a certified learner of the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD). Currently, she works at the Harvard Medical School as their IT Policy and Compliance Administrator and is attending Harvard Extension School to complete her second master’s degree.

With 12+ years of experience in IT, her focus has been in mitigating security structure after a data breach, access management, physical security, auditing, compliance, and developing and performing risk management for large organizations. She brings a background in cryptology, IT governance, cyber awareness, cyber training and cyber liaison between operations and IT. Her background includes privacy and security in business, government agencies and recent healthcare environments.

She evaluates and oversees the adoption of automated information systems to accommodate special and complex agency needs. She analyzes, summarizes and reviews data, reports findings, interprets results and makes recommendations. She works with vendors to develop technical requirements, standards and specifications for use and operation of information systems. She has also presented in multiple security conferences, been published in a local newspaper and speaks multiple languages.