Restructuring Offices of Institutional Compliance and Privacy
October 2, 2007, Volume 54, No. 6	Print Issue

Mary Lee Brown, associate vice president for the Office of Audit, Compliance and Privacy, is pleased to announce restructured leadership and new roles in the privacy and compliance functions. 

The Office of Institutional Compliance (OIC) will continue to be led by Lauren Steinfeld who has served as chief privacy officer since January 2002. In addition, Ms. Steinfeld now serves as institutional compliance officer, bringing her experience in developing a leading model for organizational change in privacy to the compliance function as well. 

Ms. Steinfeld had been serving as interim institutional compliance officer since last fall while continuing to serve as the first chief privacy officer in a major institution of higher education. Ms. Steinfeld has helped build the privacy program at Penn, with a focus on raising awareness about privacy risks and choices and mitigating risk through programs involving SSN-remediation, protection of alumni data, and expansion of privacy information available to website visitors, to name a few.  The privacy program also focuses on compliance activities around HIPAA and FERPA and other laws, as well as IT privacy controls. 

Ms. Steinfeld began her career in privacy working as attorney advisor to Federal Trade Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson and then as associate chief counselor for privacy at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton Administration. Ms. Steinfeld has a J.D. from NYU Law School and graduated phi beta kappa and magna cum laude with her B.A. from Penn. 

Maura Johnston recently joined the privacy office as assistant privacy officer. Ms. Johnston previously served for six years at Temple University Health System, first as special assistant to the chief medical officer then as director of medical affairs operations, where she coordinated aspects of system-level risk management, clinical quality improvement and patient safety programs. Prior to that, she had extensive experience in law and health care, working for the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services as director of health care financing systems, as a special assistant U.S. attorney in an Independent Agency Law Department, and as deputy attorney general, Litigation Section in Harrisburg, PA.  Ms. Johnston earned an M.B.A. from Wharton, a J.D. from Penn Law and a B.A. from Clark University.

Linda Egerter Yoder continues to serve OIC as assistant compliance officer. Since arriving at Penn in January of 2006, Ms. Yoder has led several critical efforts for OIC, including facilitating Clery Crime reporting with the online training and reporting module, developing the compliance universe inventory of the range of compliance requirements at Penn, and raising awareness of compliance through presentations on the confidential 1-888-BEN-TIPS reporting line and the Principles of Responsible Conduct.  Ms. Yoder previously worked in health care administration at Jefferson Health System and Graduate Health System and then focused on her legal career at Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Colman and Goggin.  Ms. Yoder earned her B.A. from the College of William and Mary, her M.A. in corporate public relations at Rowan University, and her J.D. at Rutgers University School of Law, Camden, NJ.

OIC has re-oriented its focus in recent months and will continue to do so. The focus is on coordinating and improving communications at all levels regarding the many compliance activities that take place at Penn, including establishing a formal community of functional compliance leads for sharing compliance tools, resources, and best practices. In addition, for the broader community, OIC continues to manage the confidential reporting line, 1-888-BEN-TIPS, and raise consciousness of the importance of compliance and ethical behavior through the Principles of Responsible Conduct, www.upenn.edu/audit/oacp_principles.htm.