Nan Harrell

Title
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Email
Department
Department of Management and Technology
College
College of Business

Areas of Expertise

Information systems, information security, IT project management, Management Information Systems

I started my career as a high school computer science teacher. A few years later, the district decided to establish an enterprise environment and asked me to become the first district technology director. That was a very exciting and fun time for me. After successfully building an enterprise environment for the district, the State of Arkansas hired me to assist all of the school districts in the State with their technology. It was not long before I found myself becoming a project manager and assisting with many State enterprise projects. I eventually was assigned to the State Cyber Security Office, where I was over the State's security projects. I enjoyed working with the security team and learned a lot about cyber security during my tenure there. A few years later, I became an Information Systems Manager and Cyber Security officer for the State’s Health Information Exchange. (Not to be confused with the Health Insurance Exchange.) The work was challenging, but it was also exciting to know that our system assisted in saving lives by ensuring fast and reliable patient information to healthcare providers.  Today, I have taken a job as an Assistant Professor with a State University.  I have a PhD in Information Systems with an emphasis in security. I obtained my PhD from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

  • Ph.D. - Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems, Nova Southeastern University
  • MMIS 389: Info Assurance & Info Quality
  • MISA 503: Informatics: Scty Imp X-Dis Cp
  • MISA 541: Int'l Con Info Assur & Protect
  • MISA 544: The High-Reliability Entpr Mod
  • The courses taught online:
    • MISA 501 - Assured Business Systems: Managing and Protecting the Information Systems Enterprise
    • MISA 502 – Risk Management and Business Continuity
    • MISA 503 – Informatics: Security Implications of Cross-Disciplinary Computing
    • MGMT 388 – System Forensics, Investigation and Response
    • MMIS 531 – Information Systems Project Management
    • MCMP/MHSR 501 - The Internet, Security and Governance
  • Developed online courses for ERAU Worldwide:
    • MISA 502 Risk Management and Business Continuity
    • MISA 507 Quality Management for Information Assurance
    • MISA 541 - International Considerations for Information Assurance and Protection
    • MISA 543 – Assured strategic messaging: Keeping the message intact and effective
    • MMIS 552 – Information Systems and Information Technology Governance
    • MMIS 531 – Information Systems Project Management
    • MISA 544 – The High-Reliability Enterprise Model
    • MGMT 389  - Information Assurance and Information Quality

PRACTITIONER EXPERIENCE:


  • Information Systems Manager and Cyber Security Officer for the Arkansas Health Information Exchange (HIE) Project: State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE) - (April 2013-July 2016).
    • Includes oversight of the implementation of the State Health Information Exchange (HIE). The State HIE provides Direct Secure Messaging to health providers. In addition, a patient data repository receives data from various health systems (Health Information Management Systems and Electronic Health Record Systems). The HIE can send data into customer’s health systems or the providers can log into the virtual health record web portal to view patient data.  The State HIE also provides clinical data analytics to providers.
    • Met all State and HIPAA requirements for Arkansas Citizen data.
    • Managed a team to provide system support to health providers across the State. This includes hospitals, clinics, the Department of Health, etc.
    • Worked with project team to successfully complete a migration of the HIE from one vendor (Optum Insight) to another vendor (Mirth, Inc.)


  • Project Manager for the Arkansas Department of Education (2011-2013)
    • Provided project management services for statewide efforts to supply public schools with necessary information
    • Assisted with systems that provide federally required public school data.
  • Program/Project Manager at the Arkansas Department of Information Systems (2005-2011)
    • The State Cyber Security Office BAD Project – This project was designed to conduct a feasibility project for the implementation of an automated system to discover and mitigate botnets on the State Network. (Received the George C. Askew Outstanding Project Award for Certified Public Managers - 2010)
    • The State Cyber Security Office Project Manager for Legislative Audit preparations (2009-2011).
    • Cisco ASA and Pix Firewall management for State Agencies, boards, commissions, and public schools (2011).
    • Program.Project Manager for the Arkansas Dept. of Education account (2006-2010) – This account was worth nearly $20 million to the Dept. of Information Systems. I managed all aspects of this account.

Association of Information Systems (Since 2012)

Certified Public Manager (Since 2013)

Member of American Society for Public Administration (2012)

Member Project Management Institute (Since 2005)- PMP Certified

FBI Citizen Academy Alumni Association (2013)

  • Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) Honor Society for Computer and Information Sciences (2010)
  • Received George C. Askew Award (Certified Public Manager Outstanding Project Award) from Arkansas Public Administration Consortium for the BAD project (Botnet Automated Discovery, 2010)
  • Delta Epsilon Iota (DEI) Academic Honor Society (2014)