April DeConick holds the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professorship in New Testament and Early Christianity at Rice University, Department of Religion. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1994 in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. She is the co-founder and executive editor of the academic journal called Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies (Brill). She founded and chaired the Mysticism, Esotericism and Gnosticism group in the Society of Biblical Literature as well as chaired the Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism group. She is most noted for her writing on the Gospel of Judas when she challenged sensationalism generated by the National Geographic Society that wrongly claimed that Judas is a gnostic hero. Instead, her work shows that Judas remains demonic in the Gospel of Judas, just as he is in the New Testament gospels. Her work on this text was so instrumental that she appeared in CNN’s documentary on the Gospel of Judas that premiered in 2015 on the TV series "Finding Jesus". Her book, The Gnostic New Age, won the 2016 award from the Figure Foundation for the best book to be published by a university press in philosophy and religion. Her textbook, Comparing Christianities: An Introduction to Early Christianity (2023 Wiley Blackwell) is the first textbook to integrate the wide range of early Christian literature into the history of Christianity.