Parker is the Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance, Emeritus at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He teaches or has taught courses in corporate finance in the Stanford MBA Program, Stanford MSx Program, and in various Executive Education programs at the school. He is also codirector of the Financial Management Program and the Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Executive Program. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford in 1973, Parker was an assistant and associate professor of finance at Columbia University in New York City.

Parker was the recipient of the 2000 Robert T. Davis Award for Faculty Lifetime Achievement at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the 2006 Distinguished Teaching Award in the Stanford MBA Program. In addition, Parker serves on four boards of directors of listed, publicly traded companies, one mutual fund company, one privately held company, and one nonprofit organization. In addition, he has served from 2003 to the present as the faculty chairman of the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility for the Board of Trustees of Stanford University. Between 1977 and 1989, Parker served as a trustee of Haverford College, his undergraduate alma mater. Parker holds an MBA and PhD degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business from the classes of 1962 and 1967, respectively. Between 1962 and 1964, he was a member of the United States Peace Corps in Peru.