(773) 256-6302

parks-kathleen@norc.org

Research administration

Human subjects/Institutional Review Board (IRB) protections

Project management

M.P.H. Keller Graduate School of Management, University of Wisconsin

M.B.A. University of Wisconsin

B.A. University of South Carolina

Ms. Parks oversees a $6 million research and training program associated with the University of Chicago faculty. She directs the day-to-day activities of four research centers containing 30+ active research projects valued at more than $20 million. She manages a department of more than 75 employees and an annual budget of $5.5 million to support administration, research development, analytical research, and data collection to ensure the integrity of research data. She also participates in budget development and strategic planning as a member of the senior management team.

Ms. Parks also oversees NORC’s research library, its archives, and its Institutional Review Board (IRB), which provides oversight of human subject research.  

Ms. Parks professional career includes facilitation of the intellectual and programmatic activities of the Population Research Center and the Center on Aging. For these programs, she developed institutional grant proposals and managed associated activities, including a weekly research seminar series.  She also planned and oversaw national conferences and acted as liaison among the many constituencies of the Center and provided collaboration to NORC’s financial management staff regarding Center budgets.

Ms. Parks' professional experience also includes more than fifteen years as an arts administrator and program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she was affiliated with the Elvehjem Museum of Art and the School of Music.  There, she wrote successful grant applications to the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute for Museum Services, Wisconsin Arts Board, and other cultural arts organizations and foundations.  In addition, she was involved in the establishment of the Sunday Afternoon Live at the Elvehjem, a program that brought musicians into a museum setting for an afternoon concert. Ms. Parks designed and managed an arts education program, raised funds to support arts research and programming, engaged in outreach and public information, and established a small local arts program that brought poetry, theatre and the visual arts to low-income children in public housing projects.