Johns Hopkins University is an American private research university founded in 1876 and located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is considered the first research university in the United States, with campuses in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), is the nation’s largest university-affiliated research center. The non-profit organization applies its research to areas such as air and missile defense, space science, and medicine, among others. Data is at the heart of all aspects of the laboratory’s work; and with work that includes national defense, the federal government, and medicine, this data must be secure.