Kit Parker

Last updated
Kit Parker
Captain Kevin Kit Parker hands out hygiene pack in Kandahar.jpg
Captain Kit Parker hands out a hygiene pack to a boy in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan (2007 or earlier)
Birth nameKevin Kit Parker
Service/branch United States Army Reserve
Rank Lieutenant colonel
Other workFaculty at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
Website diseasebiophysics.seas.harvard.edu

Kevin Kit Parker is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve [1] and the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University. [2] His research includes cardiac cell biology and tissue engineering, traumatic brain injury, and biological applications of micro- and nanotechnologies. Additional work in his laboratory has included fashion design, marine biology, and the application of counterinsurgency methods to countering transnational organized crime. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Parker attended Boston University's College of Engineering and graduated in 1989. He earned a Master of Science degree in 1993 and a doctoral degree in applied physics in 1998 from Vanderbilt University. [4] [5]

Military career

Parker is a paratrooper who has served in the United States Army since 1992. After the September 11 attacks, he served two tours of duty in Afghanistan. [6]

In addition to his combat tours, Parker conducted two missions into Afghanistan as part of the Gray Team in 2011. [7] [8]

Civilian career

Initially, at Harvard the focus of his research was heart muscle cells. He turned to traumatic brain injury in 2005 after realizing that an Army friend of his, who had received injuries in an IED blast in Iraq in 2005, was suffering from an undiagnosed medical condition rather than a psychological problem. [9] [10]

Other research of Parker's includes designing camouflage using skin cells of cuttlefish and the use of a cotton candy machine to make dressings for wounds. [11]

Parker served on the Defense Science Research Council for nearly a decade, [12] the Defense Science Board Task Force on Autonomy, and has consulted to other US government agencies as well as the medical device and pharma industry.

In 2011, Parker headed Harvard's committee for reintroducing ROTC at the university. [13]

In July 2016, it was announced that The Disease Biophysics Group at Harvard, led by Kit Parker, created a tissue-engineered soft-robotic ray that swims using wave-like fin motions, and turns according to externally applied light cues. [14]

C3 course controversy

In January 2021, students at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences created a petition objecting to Parker's course on Counter-Criminal Continuum policing, or C3 policing. Titled "Data Fusion in Complex Systems: A Case Study," the course promised to engage graduate student researchers to analyze the efficacy of C3 techniques in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The petition objected to the lack of research into the potential harms of C3 policing, particularly the ethical implications for marginalized communities. [15] The Dean of the Engineering School soon announced the class was canceled, [16] and committed to reviewing the process of vetting class offerings. [17]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston University</span> Private university in Massachusetts, US

Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodists with its original campus in Newbury, Vermont, before being chartered in Boston in 1869. It is a member of the Association of American Universities and the Boston Consortium for Higher Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Dominion University</span> Public university in Norfolk, Virginia, US

Old Dominion University (ODU) is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia. Established in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, an extension school of the College of William & Mary for working professionals, members of the military, and non-traditional students in Norfolk-Virginia Beach area of the Hampton Roads region. The university has since expanded into a residential college for traditional students and is one of the largest universities in Virginia with an enrollment of 23,494 students for the 2023 academic year. The university also enrolls over 600 international students from 99 countries. Its main campus covers 250 acres (1.0 km2) straddling the city neighborhoods of Larchmont, Highland Park, and Lambert's Point, approximately five miles (8.0 km) north of Downtown Norfolk along the Elizabeth River.

A Master of Engineering is a professional master's degree in the field of engineering.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Applied Physics Laboratory</span> University-affiliated research center

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center (UARC) in Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and employs 8,700 people as of 2024. APL is the nation's largest UARC.

The Doctor of Engineering is a professional doctorate in engineering and applied science. An EngD is a terminal degree similar to a PhD in engineering but applicable more in industry rather than in academia. The degree is usually aimed toward working professionals.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chronic traumatic encephalopathy</span> Neurodegenerative disease caused by head injury

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences</span> Engineering school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted directly to SEAS, and to undergraduates admitted first to Harvard College. Previously the Lawrence Scientific School and then the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Paulson School assumed its current structure in 2007. Francis J. Doyle III has been its dean since 2015.

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Ibolja Cernak is an American researcher in blast wave injury. Cernak concluded in the 1990s that soldiers who had been subjected to blasts were suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI), while most still considered their invisible injuries to be Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), and to be psychological rather than physical. Cernak is Chair of Military and Veterans’ Clinical Rehabilitation at the Faculty of Rehabilitation at the University of Alberta.

The Gray Team, currently evolved into the Grey Team, and more formally known as the Joint Neurosciences Inspection Team, was the name given to a series of special inspection units commissioned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to serve as mechanism to help improve the care of American forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their missions were particularly focused on the "invisible wounds of war" such as traumatic brain injury or post traumatic stress.

Susan Margulies is an American engineer and assistant director of the U.S. National Science Foundation, heading the Directorate for Engineering. She is also the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics and Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, where she served as chair from 2017 to 2021. She is a world leader in the biomechanics of head injury in infants.

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References

  1. "Learning to Engineer a Better Brisket". The New York Times. 19 July 2015.
  2. Dwortzan, Mark (28 November 2012). "Professor and Paratrooper: ENG alum pinpoints cause of traumatic brain injury". BU Today. Boston University . Retrieved 8 June 2016.
  3. "Kit Parker". Harvard University.
  4. "Professor and Paratrooper – BU Today – Boston University".
  5. "Kit Parker". 14 July 2016.
  6. "Le Laboratoire Cambridge – Art and Design Center".
  7. "How A Team Of Elite Doctors Changed The Military's Stance On Brain Trauma". NPR .
  8. Science, American Association for the Advancement of (6 January 2012). "News this Week". 335 (6064): 18 via science.sciencemag.org.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. Hamilton, Jon (8 June 2016). "Shots: An Army Buddy's Call For Help Sends A Scientist On A Brain Injury Quest". NPR . Retrieved 8 June 2016.
  10. Alexander, Caroline (February 2015). "Blast Force: The Invisible War on the Brain". National Geographic magazine.
  11. "Where science meets war: Kit Parker's lab". CBS News . 4 August 2013. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
  12. "Kevin Kit Parker, Ph.D." 5 August 2016.
  13. Khadaroo, Stacy Teicher (30 March 2011). "ROTC returns to Harvard: Does officer training program need Ivy League?". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  14. "Living Soft Robots « SEAS DBG".
  15. "SEAS Cancels Class on Controversial Policing Strategy After Student Petition | News | the Harvard Crimson".
  16. "Harvard Cancels Course On Policing Techniques After Uproar". News. 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  17. "Harvard calls off course amid petition campaign". www.insidehighered.com. 27 January 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  18. 1 2 3 "Kevin Kit Parker – Harvard – Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs".