Harshila Dulabh - expertly guiding Business Intelligence at Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½
- Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ University
As one of the first women to study computers at Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ in the mid-80s, Dulabh has always had the ability to see new paths and harness the power of data.
Dulabh took over as the Head of (BIS) in January 2025 following the retirement of Kevin Mcloughlin, who had been at the helm since the founding of BIS in the late ‘90s.
Dulabh has an intimate understanding of Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½’ information needs having played various roles in the life of the University. As a student, she was among a handful of women enrolled for BSc in computer science in 1984 – a decision she says was hard to explain to some of her family members, as they could not fathom what it entails and associated careers.
Compounding her family’s confusion is that Dulabh had left the small town of Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal to study a BSc in Biological Science, with the intention to study medicine, but she switched in second year.
“I guess it all worked out for the best,” says the Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ alumna. Afterall, Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ was a pioneer as the first university in South African to own a computer in the 1960s.
As a student she held a part-time job at Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ ICT, then known as Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ Computers and Network Services (CNS). This paved the way for fulltime employment upon graduation.
When the University established BIS in 1997, headed by Mcloughlin, Dulabh was a natural choice to transfer to this strategic division, which provided critical data about the University’s growing student population, student performance, and other key indicators to inform decision-making and interventions.
As a data scientist, backed by a master’s degree in information engineering from Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½, she values quality and well-curated data as these are the building blocks for many strategic and operational decisions.
Lauded for reliability and dependability when it comes to meeting the needs of the many stakeholders at the University, Dulabh received the Vice-Chancellor’s Service Excellence Award (2023) in the Grade 5-6 category.
An Impactful Contribution
With institutional memory stretching over four decades, Dulabh says she is proud of the progress made in IT and data science and looks forward to the next chapter.
She oversees a team of highly qualified professionals and interns across five units specialising in data engineering, data science, institutional research, statutory reporting, and constituent relationship management.
BIS delivers descriptive and diagnostic insights to inform operational management and planning across all levels and key data domains (staff, student, finance, research, etc.). The team also provides predictive analytics to enhance student success.
A focus of Dulabh's work is leveraging the Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ enterprise data warehouse to address the University's reporting, analytics, and enrolment planning needs. She is currently a member of the team responsible for a government-funded project focused on designing an integrated student data warehouse for the South African higher education sector, with the goal of promoting student success.
As leaders in this field, BIS regularly hosts workshop and is working with the Southern African Association for Institutional Research to host a conferenced themed on 12 -14 May 2025.
Outside of Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½, Dulabh is the mother of two Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ graduates who chose to follow their father’s path into medical fields. She enjoys the outdoors and preparing nutritious meals for her family.
Related article: