Mardecia Bell is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at North Carolina State University and has been working in the information technology field for 35+ years. As CISO she manages the information security program by implementing, to the extent possible, industry best practices and policy/procedural/technological controls to avoid and mitigate risk to NC State University's information assets. Mardecia has held several positions in central IT since joining the university in September 1985. She previously served as the director of Enterprise Technology Services & Support and director of Administrative Computing Services. Under her leadership, programs such as an automated access request, IT Portfolio/Project Management Services, Organizational Resilience/Disaster Recovery for Centralized Computing, security operations services, development of data/security standards/guidelines and compliance initiatives (PCI DSS, ISO 27002, NIST 800-171, HIPAA, etc) have been implemented. Mardecia has presented several sessions at EDUCAUSE and was recently a panelist at the 2021 CISOonline Education Predictions Panel. She is a member of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Information Security Council and has served as chairperson. She is also a member of other organizations such as ISSA, ISACA, Inragueard, and etc. Mardecia is a founding member of NC State’s Women In Technology Interest Group and serves as a mentor for students in the Shelton Leadership Program. Mardecia received her bachelor's degree in computer science from North Carolina State University.