After completing a B.A. in Natural Sciences in 1963, M.A. in 1964, and Ph.D. in 1966 in Geophysics at
Downing College, Cambridge in England, Parker moved to the U.S. to work at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). He has subsequently built on work by
Freeman Gilbert and
George Backus regarding
inverse theory and is a world-renowned expert on the general subject of inverse theory, having written one of the authoritative books He is a former director of IGPP. ==Personal life==