Apryl A. Alexander

In 2018, Alexander gave a TEDx talk in Denver where she discussed her research on the importance of sex education in preventing sexual assault in teens. She talked about her research exploring the backgrounds and statistics of childhood sex offenders, recounting that one third of sexual offences are committed by individuals under the age of 18. She further explored what was considered as a sex offence in the record of these young adults, and the majority of them were not what one typical thinks of as sexual offences. Unfortunately, the label of sex offender remains permanent in the lives of these children as they move into adulthood, even though less than 4% of these individuals never go on to commit another offence. During her time in Alabama, Alexander found that the majority of adolescents who committed sexual offences were not educated about consent until after they committed sexual offences. However, once given the education on why their actions were considered offences, they learned and they understood, which made Alexander adamant about ensuring that all students are given the chance to be educated on consent in school, prior to high school, to prevent children's lives from being ruined by their labels. After her talk, Alexander continued on a path towards making her research and advocacy into policy changes. She provided legislative testimony for a bill that would mandate consent education as a component of the sexual education courses in schools, and this bill was passed and made into a law in 2019.

In 2016, Alexander was recruited to the University of Denver where she became a clinical assistant professor in the Graduate School for Professional Psychology as well as the director of Denver FIRST (Forensic Institute for Research, Service, and Training), an Outpatient Competency Restoration Program. In 2017, Alexander founded the Prison Arts Initiative. As the co-director, from 2017 to 2019, Alexander helped design and implement therapeutic creative programming for incarcerated individuals in Colorado State Prisons. As of 2019, Alexander was appointed faculty affiliate of the Scrivner Institute of Public Policy, and in 2020 she was promoted to tenured associate professor of the Graduate School of Professional Psychology.

Alexander was recruited to Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama in 2013, where she became an assistant clinical professor within the department of psychology. Alexander got involved in the treatment program offered in collaboration between Auburn and the Department of Youth Services to provide education and normative experiences to adolescents who had sexually offended.

Alexander pursued her graduate degree in clinical psychology at the Florida Institute of Technology. She studied there because of The Family Learning Program which supports individuals and their family members affected by sexual abuse. Alexander concentrated in Forensic Psychology and also studied child and family therapy for sufferers of maltreatment and trauma. She obtained a master's degree in 2009, and completed her PsyD by 2012. Alexander worked in a variety of settings where she interfaced with offenders as well as victims to elucidate evidence-based approaches to addressing violence.

Alexander was born in Louisiana and was driven to pursue higher education from a young age. In 2001, she pursued her undergraduate education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, becoming the first woman in her family to pursue a postsecondary education. She started her degree planning to pursue veterinary studies, when her volunteer experiences working with sexual assault and domestic violence survivors changed her path. Alexander switched her major to psychology and minored in sociology and, in 2005, graduated with a Bachelors of Science. She worked as a counsellor at the Women's Resource Center in the New River Valley in Radford, Virginia. As a CARE (Crisis Advocate Responding Effectively) companion, she provided support to adults and children who had faced sexual assault. During this experience she saw patterns in the behavior and stories of the sexual offenders, such that they often had trauma in their own backgrounds. This led Alexander to shift her career towards education strategies for offenders.

Apryl A. Alexander (born c. 1983) is an American clinical and forensic psychologist who is an associate professor at the University of Denver. Alexander directs students at the Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service and Training (Denver FIRST), and engages in clinical psychology practice. She is co-founder of the University of Denver's Prison Arts Initiative where incarcerated individuals engage in a therapeutic, educational arts curricula.