When World War II necessitated a temporary halt to the project, Parker came back to Chicago to teach Egyptology at the university.
[1] In 1948, he founded the Department of Egyptology at Brown University and became its first chairman, and also assumed the newly created position of the Charles Edwin Wilbour Professorship.
In 1951, he traveled to Egypt to examine monuments linked to ancient astronomy, and in subsequent years studied papyri at Paris, Florence, Vienna, Copenhagen and Oxford, in Britain.
[7] In 1971, British Academy elected Parker as a corresponding fellow, the highest accolade for scholarship given in Great Britain.
[9] Parker was a devoted fan of Brown University football, and was noted for foregoing trips abroad so as not to miss a home game.