April Heyward, MRA serves as the Program Manager of the SC EPSCoR Program at the South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA). She develops, implements, and manages STEM funding programs and initiatives to increase research capacity, research competitiveness, and the STEM workforce pipeline in South Carolina. April is pursuing her Doctorate in Public Administration at Valdosta State University and is in the Dissertation phase of her Doctoral Program. She is an R Programmer (RStudio IDE). April integrates Data Science (wrangling, analyzing, and visualization), Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and R Programming (RStudio IDE) into her research, research methods, and non-research projects. Her educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Benedict College and a Master of Research Administration (MRA) from the University of Central Florida. She is a member of the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA), ASPA Section on Public Administration Research, ASPA Section on International and Comparative Administration, ASPA Section on Science and Technology in Government (SSTIG), and the South Carolina Academy of Sciences (SCAS). April is the President-Elect and Vice President (2nd term) of the South Carolina Academy of Sciences, Executive Committee Officer (1st term) of ASPA Section on Science and Technology in Government (SSTIG), and serve as a SCAS Council Member (2nd term) of the South Carolina Academy of Sciences Council.