Meet-a-Ram: Dan Han serves and protects in tech

By Haley Tenore

It's been a season to remember for Dan Han, a behind-the-scenes leader in a right-in-front-of-you realm at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Since 2011, Han has served as chief information security officer in Technology Services, where he is responsible for setting VCU's strategy and overseeing day-to-day operations. As CISO, his work affects and protects everyone who uses technology at VCU, and his leadership hasn't gone unnoticed - even if the average user might not recognize him.

This fall, Han was featured on the cover of EdTech magazine, which focuses on higher education. And locally, RVATech, a Richmond-based technology council, recognized him as CISO of the Year during its 2025 gala.

Han, who grew up in the Richmond area and earned his bachelor's, master's and MBA degrees from VCU, began his university career in 2002-03 as an information technology manager at the School of Medicine. In recent years, he returned to the classroom as an adjunct professor in the School of Business, sharing his knowledge of cybersecurity, technology and artificial intelligence with a new generation of practitioners.

VCU News caught up with Han for a basic, if not advanced, scan of his work.

First of all, how did your student experience at VCU influence your career path?

Before I started working for VCU, I was already deep into programming. I worked for a financial services firm in my late teens to early 20s, developing applications. But the corporate culture at the time just didn't meet my vibes. I saw an opening at the School of Medicine - they were hiring a student worker. I applied and began supporting a computer lab there. Being able to attend school while working full time really helped me develop my career.

If there is such a thing in your position, what does a typical day look like for you now?

On a normal day, I get up before 5 a.m. I put on my headphones, start listening to my daily cybersecurity and technology podcasts, get my exercise and then get my kids ready for school. But during that entire time, I am also browsing security and AI news, just to keep track of what is happening.

In the cybersecurity field, things move so fast. If we miss certain signals, that could be the difference between having a data breach or not.

And when you see a troubling signal?

If I see security news that may affect VCU, I post it on an internal channel we have. Every day, we are triaging things that could negatively impact our security. When I get my kids to school and get all these initial things settled, the day really begins. I have meetings about the information security impact on VCU and am making plans to improve security.

Because of the pandemic, working from home has fundamentally shifted how threats target our community and how we must secure our information and our workforce. Now more than ever, we are emphasizing how we secure our devices, because we no longer have the physical border that separates home from work.

Let's pivot to the classroom. What is one of your broad thoughts about students and AI?

Ever since ChatGPT debuted in 2022, the cat has been out of the bag. It is not going to go away. Instead of not using it, we should identify ways we can use it as educators. We should learn about it and teach our students how to use it properly.

To get students ready for the workplace, in IT and technology, it is very prevalent for employees in this field to use AI. We need to think about how we can teach our students to identify when AI is appropriate and how to extract the most value out of it to enhance our work.

That's a tall order, right?

We want to look at this from the perspective of having AI-assisted learning, rather than AI-dominated learning. There's still that fundamental line of students not using AI if they don't understand the basics. Students need to understand what questions to ask AI.

General knowledge delivery through traditional coursework, where someone has some hands-on practical assignments - AI can help you, but you still must know where and how to set up what. AI cannot necessarily help you with that.

You're heavily involved in the local and Virginia tech scene. Tell us something about the annual RVAsec conference, which you've helped lead.

Until the seventh or eighth year, RVAsec was hosted at VCU. It eventually outgrew VCU because it really became a regional phenomenon. It is usually attended by about 700-800 people from the area, sometimes internationally, and it is recognized as one of the premier conferences on the East Coast. But VCU is still involved year after year.