About

Twenty years, one question.

How do you design systems, services and software that hold up under the conditions people actually live in, not the conditions the design assumed?

Portrait of Donald Harris
Based in Albany, New York
Role Founder & Principal,
Strategraph LLC

The short version

I study what happens after people say yes.

Adoption gets the attention. Abandonment gets the outcomes. My work sits in the gap between the two, in digital mental health, in community crisis systems, and increasingly in the products being built to serve both.

I'm an information scientist by training and a practitioner by temperament. I hold a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University at Albany, where my dissertation on why young adults abandon mental health mobile applications received the program's Distinguished Dissertation Award and the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity's Exceptional Research Project Award. Before that: an MBA from Regis University and a B.A. in Criminal Justice from Albany, with a psychology minor.

For over a decade, I helped build and deliver technical assistance to interagency teams of public officials across the country, most recently as an Assistant Director at Policy Research Associates. That meant developing a systems model for improving community crisis response, writing the multi-session curricula that taught it, and standing in front of a lot of rooms full of people who had every reason to be skeptical of another framework. It taught me something a Ph.D. alone doesn't: a model only counts if the people who have to live with it can use it on a Tuesday.

In 2022 I founded Strategraph LLC, a veteran-owned consultancy that brings data, design and facilitation to community mental health and crisis systems. Strategraph is where the applied work lives, needs assessments, systems maps, evaluation design, learning collaboratives, and data-literacy training for organizations that need to be able to read their own evidence.

Service

United States Marine Corps.

I enlisted out of high school and served four years, including a deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It isn't the headline of my career, but it is the foundation of it.

The Marine Corps is where I first saw, up close, what it costs when the systems meant to support people don't reach them in time. Veteran and military-connected mental health has been a throughline in my work ever since, in the research, in the federal technical assistance, and in the fact that Strategraph is a Veteran-Owned Small Business.

Donald Harris in uniform with family at recruit graduation
Recruit graduation
Donald Harris during combat training
Combat training
Marines deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom
Operation Iraqi Freedom

The path

Nothing about it was linear.

Time in the desert to criminal justice to business school to federal technical assistance to a doctorate in information science. Each step looked like a detour at the time. In hindsight they were all the same work.

  1. 2022 → present

    Founder & Principal

    Strategraph LLC, Veteran-Owned Small Business. Research, evaluation, systems mapping and facilitation for behavioral health and crisis systems.

  2. 2025

    Ph.D., Information Science

    University at Albany. Dissertation: Investigating Post-Adoption Abandonment of Mental Health Mobile Applications Among Young Adults. Chair: Dr. Archana Krishnan.

  3. 2020 → 2025

    Assistant Director

    Policy Research Associates. Curriculum development and national technical assistance for interagency public-official teams; systems models for community crisis response.

  4. 2021 → 2023

    Adjunct Instructor

    University at Albany, CEHC 210, Critical Inquiry. Argument construction, evidence evaluation and analytic writing.

  5. 2018 → 2020

    Senior Project Associate

    Systems model development for community mental health crisis systems, literature synthesis, expert interviews, model design.

  6. 2008

    M.B.A.

    Regis University, School of Management.

  7. 2006

    B.A., Criminal Justice

    University at Albany, minor in Psychology.

  8. 1999 → 2003

    United States Marine Corps

    Four years of active service, including deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Doctoral hooding ceremony at the University at Albany
Doctoral hooding, University at Albany
Receiving the CEHC Exceptional Research Project Award
CEHC Exceptional Research Project Award

Recognition

Honors & awards

2026 Distinguished Dissertation Award

Ph.D. Program in Information Science, University at Albany

2026 Exceptional Research Project Award

College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security & Cybersecurity, University at Albany

2025 UAlbany Benevolent Association Research & Creative Activity Grant

Supporting survey data collection on inhibitors and abandonment

2007 Spellman Academic Achievement Award

University at Albany

2006 Alpha Phi Sigma

Criminal Justice Honor Society

Affiliations

Professional service

Board New York State Public Health Association

Board of Directors, 2022–2023

Member American Medical Informatics Association
Member Society for Health Communication
Review Peer & abstract review

International Communication Association (73rd Annual Conference); ACM-W New York Celebration of Women in Computing; manuscript review on social-media analysis of opioid use

Methods & tools

  • Python
  • R
  • Streamlit
  • SQLite
  • Qualtrics
  • Topic modeling
  • Mediation analysis
  • Survey design
  • Quantitative text analysis
  • Systems mapping
  • Journey mapping
  • n8n

Speaking & facilitation

A model only counts if people can use it on a Tuesday.

I speak and facilitate on digital mental health engagement, crisis system design, and what research actually tells product teams. Recent venues include the International Communication Association, NatCon, the Suicide Research Symposium, and the VA/DoD Suicide Prevention Conference.