Guest Profile
Dr. Sharon Parker
Sharon Parker, PhD, MSW, MS is an Associate Professor in the Joint Master of Social Work and Joint PhD in Social Work Programs at NC Agricultural & Technical State University in conjunction with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In addition, Dr. Parker serves as the Interim Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences. She was an Institute for Clinical & Translational Fellow at Brown University Dept. of Public Health. Dr. Parker completed an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University & The Miriam Hospital. She received her PhD in Social Work from the University of NC at Chapel Hill where she obtained a predoctoral fellowship, the Council of Social Work Education Minority Fellowship, funded by NIMH.
Dr. Parker is a health disparities researcher examining the structural, social, behavioral, and biological factors influencing the transmission of infectious diseases with a primary focus on HIV among African Americans & other vulnerable populations. She examines the interconnectedness of HIV, concurrent sexual relationships, substance abuse, intimate partner violence, and gender inequality among criminal justice involved individuals and other high-risk populations. For over six years Dr. Parker has been engaged in several randomized control trials funded by the NIH and the CDC. She engages in a multidisciplinary approach in the areas of both research and clinical practice. Translational Research is incorporated into her work in order to improve the health outcomes of vulnerable populations.
Dr. Parker has over 20 years of clinical and research experience working with adolescents & adults in mental health and criminal justice. She has serviced as a substance abuse consultant at a training school for adolescent boys with histories of substance abuse and conducted HIV interventions with women prisoners. Dr. Parker is engaged in biomedical research examining the use of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) with men who have sex with men (MSM) and heterosexual women to reduce the transmission of HIV among high-risk populations.
