She was a professor at the University of Western Ontario and held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Risk.
[1] Parr was born in 1949 in Toronto, Ontario,[2] and received her Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in 1971 before moving on to graduate school at Yale University, where she received her PhD in 1977 under the supervision of Robin W.
B. Tyrell Historical Medal for outstanding work in the history of Canada.
[8][4]She was the recipient of the 1991 Sir John A. Macdonald Prize (now the CHA Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize) for the best book in Canadian history from the Canadian Historical Association for her book The Gender of Breadwinners, which also won the Association's 1995 François-Xavier Garneau Medal.
[10][11] In 2018, SHOT awarded Parr the Leonardo da Vinci Medal for lifetime achievement, noting that "Parr has played an important role in redefining the field of history of technology internationally, in inspiring a younger generation to engage with the field, and in building a vibrant community in Canada and beyond.