Parker is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation and is a tenured professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and professor of nursing at the UNM Health Sciences College of Nursing. She received her doctoral degree in health sociology in 2001 and nursing degree in 1993, both from UNM. She directs the UNM HSC’s Center for Native American Health, and is UNM HSC’s Associate Vice Chancellor for American Indian Health Research and Education.

Parker is a founding member of the national Native Research Network. Her research addresses American Indian health equity and disparities and the social determinants of mental and behavioral health. Her teaching includes community-based education on topics of interest to tribal communities, and the graduate course “Community Based Participatory Research Institute: Indigenous and Critical Methodologies”. She co-founded the UNM HSC Institute for Indigenous Knowledge and Development and the community-based All Nations Wellness and Healing Center.

Parker’s specialties and certifications include:

• Indigenous approaches to research and education
• Indigenous community health assessment
• Historical trauma and contemporary health in tribal communities
• State Boards of Nursing: NM (since 1994) and NY (since 2001)
• Fellowship, Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine®