Karen F. Parker is currently Interim Chair and Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Delaware in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. She was elected to serve on the American Society of Criminology executive board (2012-2015), an elected council member of the Crime, Law and Deviance section of the American Sociological Association (2006-2008; 2010-2012) and a research associate with the National Poverty Center, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan since 2007.

Professor Parker's research interests include exploring the influence of macro-level constructs on urban violence, particularly labor markets, racial segregation, immigration and concentrated disadvantage. Much of her recent work has incorporated longitudinal models to examine how changes in the local urban economy differentially influence race-specific homicide rates over time and detailed examinations of the American crime drop. One of her more recent research interest is examining the role of African American owned businesses on the decline in black youth violence in urban areas throughout the United States. Her work in this area has received attention by scholars and the larger public.  She was recently invited to give a workshop co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

She has more than 45 publications and her research has been published in Criminology, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science Research, Social Forces, Urban Affairs Review, Feminist Criminology, Justice Quarterly and Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Her book, Unequal Crime Decline (2008 NYU Press), documents the role of labor market segmentation on the racial disparities in violence over time.