Thomas N. Parks, PhD

Dr. Parks is the Vice President for Research at the University of Utah. He received a B.S. in Biology from the University of California at Irvine in 1972 and a Ph.D. in Psychobiology from Yale University in 1978. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia Medical School in 1977-8, Dr. Parks joined the faculty at the University of Utah School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Anatomy and taught neuroscience to medical and graduate students. As an active neuroscience researcher for more than thirty years, Dr. Parks published extensively on the development of the central auditory system and the effects on the brain of early hearing loss. He has served on a variety of review panels for the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, as an officer of national organizations, and on foundation and editorial review boards. In 1992 Dr. Parks was appointed the George & Lorna Winder Professor of Neuroscience and chair of the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at the University of Utah and in 2004 became the founding executive director of the University’s Brain Institute, positions he held until his appointment as Vice President for Research in January 2008. In 1986, Dr. Parks co-founded NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  He served as Vice President of the company in 1987-8 and as a director until 2006.