She has a background in physiotherapy and specializes in pain management. Dr. Parker is an active researcher, rated C3 by the South African National Research Foundation, who has successfully supervised numerous postgraduate students. She is the course convener of the Postgraduate Diploma in Interdisciplinary Pain Management, the first program of its kind in Africa. She is an experienced clinician working in chronic pain management as part of the Chronic Pain Management Unit of Groote Schuur Hospital. Her research focuses on pain with emphasis on developing and testing mechanism-based treatments relevant to a South African context. She is the current president of PainSA (the South African chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain), and the past chair of the Pain, Mind and Movement Special Interest Group of IASP.