Michael Parker, MD

Michael Parker, MD, is an assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. As associate dean for Online Learning Research and faculty director of HMX at HMS, he builds innovative online learning materials across the spectrum of healthcare education. A former Rabkin Fellow in Medical Education, Dr. Parker is an accomplished teacher, combining his computer science and medical knowledge to enhance the teaching and learning of medical concepts that are critical to the future of medicine and life sciences. The HMX courses are used by a rapidly growing number of people, including tens of thousands of professionals across hundreds of companies in the life sciences and tech/healthcare sectors. Dr. Parker has received local and national recognition for his work.

The HMX online courses that Dr. Parker’s team at HMS have developed include genetics, immunology, and pharmacology, as well as cutting-edge topics in these areas, such as immuno-oncology, gene therapy, drug discovery and development, and clinical trials that emphasize the linkage between principles of basic science and the clinical significance and application of these principles. Dr. Parker’s special areas of interest include enhancing understanding of difficult concepts, particularly through active/interactive learning, and developing novel techniques for understanding, predicting, and changing learner behavior in online learning to optimize the courses’ impact on people’s lives.  
Dr. Parker received a BS and MS in electrical engineering and computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before becoming a physician, he worked in the software industry in Silicon Valley.