Cyril Harris received his Master of Science in Computer Science at the University of Texas-Pan American in 2007. While earning his degree, he was a recipient of the National Science Foundation's Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship. His Master's Thesis focused on how encryption systems could learn how to adapt to emerging threats. He received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the University of Houston–Downtown in 2004. As a student at University of Houston-Downtown, he was a member of the Scholar's Academy. He was also a GAANN Fellow at the University of Houston's Computer Science department from the Fall of 2008 to the Summer of 2011.
Cyril Harris has been teaching computer science courses since 2011. He has taught courses from within University of Houston-Downtown's Computer Science and Engineering Technology department since 2013. Prior to that, he taught at Lone Star College's Computer Information Technology department for two years. Before this, he worked as a Software Engineer for three years at O3 Technologies, a start-up company in Mission, Texas. His work there focused on inventing new technologies in Natural Language Processing. He is the co-inventor for US Patent Publications: US20100057435 A1 and WO2010025460 A1.