Biography

Ashley S. Parker, Ph.D., is the chief of staff in the Office of the Director (OD) at NCATS. She helps provide executive leadership and represents the OD and NCATS through various outreach and collaboration opportunities. She works with the center’s stakeholders, including those at NIH and other government agencies, academia, industry, nonprofits and the patient community. Prior to being named chief of staff, Parker served as a senior advisor to the NCATS director, leading highly complex projects to enhance how NCATS initiatives are run. Her efforts focused on integrating data science and technology strategies across NCATS’ offices and divisions and helping to ensure that the center’s activities align with NCATS and NIH strategic plans.

Before joining NCATS, Parker served as a senior advisor at the HHS Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. In that role she helped create strategies for treating and vaccinating against the mpox outbreak, Sudan ebolavirus and COVID-19. Parker spent more than 5 years in the NIH OD, where she served in multiple roles — including special assistant to former NIH directors and to the former director of the Office of Science Policy.

Parker earned her Ph.D. in microbiology from Howard University. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research, Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Specifically, she studied the role of bacterial small RNAs in post-transcriptional gene regulation of a multidrug efflux pump. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Professional Interests

Parker enjoys building relationships and creating strategies to strengthen partnerships in support of biomedical research. She is dedicated to working across the center and with NCATS stakeholders to identify opportunities for collaboration that will help promote NCATS’ crosscutting initiatives and achieve the center’s mission.