Michael Parker, PhD is an Assistant Dean at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He holds a BS in Biology from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and both an MS and PhD in Immunobiology from Yale University. In graduate school, Dr. Parker was a Gruber Science Fellow as well as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and studied the innate immune responses of mammalian cells to RNA viruses, specifically focusing on better understanding the restriction of RNA virus infection by DNA-specific innate sensing pathways.
Currently, he is a decanal advisor to Georgetown’s majors in Biology and Chemistry and teaches coursework as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biology. For the past four years, his group has performed research on topics such as the history of the select agents list, the role of public commenting on select agent regulation decisions, and the risk-assessment landscape for high-risk biological agents. Current research projects in the group include:
- Cataloging historical biothreat risk assessments
- Analyzing select agent policy surrounding chimeric viruses
- Discerning the impacts of public commenting of policy decision making
- Investigating the order and screening practices of DNA synthesis providers