Dr Harrell came to Duke in 2020 via the Academic Advising Center where she has served as the Director of Academic Engagement (DAE) for Natural and Quantitative Sciences. Dr Harrell is also an adjunct faculty in the Biology department and has co-directed the summer BSURF program. Prior to this, Dr. Harrell served as the Director of Pre-Doctoral Student Development and Support in the Office of Graduate Education at the UNC School of Medicine. In this capacity, she directed several programs to support the engagement and persistence of students from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences and in pursuit of scientific-research career paths, with the express goal of increasing diversity within the scientific enterprise.
Beyond her academic appointments, Dr. Harrell is a trained facilitator for the National Research Mentoring Network and has led numerous workshops for faculty and students to improve the mentor-mentee relationship, specifically helping faculty create inclusive lab environments and students to “mentor-up.” She is a first-generation student and completed her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at Louisiana State University and her PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill. A native of Louisiana, you can often find Dr. Harrell rooting for her beloved Tigers, arranging crawfish boils, and enthusiastically preparing for Mardi Gras (no matter the time of year).
