Dr. Harrison is the Dean of the School of Health Sciences, Human Services, and Nursing at Lehman College, City University of New York. She is a Registered Respiratory Therapist whose area of expertise is in neonatal and pediatrics. Dr. Harrison enjoys working with young children and their families. Dr. Harrison has worked as an executive director of health care services in a pediatric hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and been a Manager of health services throughout the Washington, DC. Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area. Dr. Harrison joined Lehman College in August 2020. She is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Southern University in New Orleans, a certificate of completion, Alton Oschner Medical Foundation, School of Respiratory Therapy, New Orleans, a Master of Science in Health Care Administration, University of Maryland, University College at College Park, Doctor of Management degree at the University of Maryland, University College (DM), and a Master of Science in Strategic Communication at Purdue University.

Dr. Harrison’s work in health disparities research span the course of her career as a respiratory therapist practitioner where she worked mainly with children diagnosed with asthma. She says, “As a hospital-based practitioner it was not uncommon to see many children return to the emergency room routinely. We can these children “frequent flyers” for the amount of times they rotated in and out of the emergency room. We learned from working with many of the families in the communities, that it was their environment that seems to exacerbate their condition. It is this knowledge that lead to the work of educating families on how to manage asthma, specifically focusing on the environment.” Dr. Harrison loves to travel to faraway places, is spontaneous in her travel plans, she might decide on a Friday to go Paris the next day.