Dr. John Parker received his veterinary degree from the University of Glasgow in 1983 and his Ph.D. in virology from Cornell University in 1999. John worked for 9 years in clinical practice as a veterinarian from 1983 to 1993 in the UK and Australia. His graduate studies at Cornell focused on the cellular and viral determinants of host range. As a post-doc at Harvard Medical School, John worked with Max Nibert on mammalian reoviruses in the Department of Microbiology and Genetics. He is currently an Associate Professor of Virology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology within the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. His lab at the Baker Institute for Animal Health studies the cell biology of viral infection with a particular interest in how viruses usurp normal cellular processes for virus replication. The lab works with several viruses, but primarily work is focused on mammalian reoviruses (REOV). Current areas of investigation include virus interaction with the cellular translational machinery, viral replication sites, and the pathogenesis of reovirus-induced myocarditis and the use of spatial transcriptomics to understand the host response.
Dr. Parker is the recipient of a Burroughs Welcome Fund Investigatorship in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease and a Pfizer Award for Research Excellence. He served on the council of the American Society for Virology as councilor for Veterinary Virology from 2010 to 2013 and again from 2019-2022. Dr. Parker is the Director of the Cornell Leadership Program for Veterinary Students and the Director of two NIH training grants that support training of veterinary scientists.