Rita Parker
Visiting Fellow
Phone: +61 2 6268 8872
Fax: +61 2 6268 8879
Email: r.parker@adfa.edu.au
Professional Background
Rita Parker has a well established background in security and resilience issues with a particular focus on non-traditional security, crisis management, business continuity and organisational resilience working across a range of topics including pandemics, counter-terrorism, and civil-military cooperation for humanitarian relief operations.
Ms Parker has broad based policy experience including as a Senior Advisor in the former Office of Security and Intelligence Coordination in the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and as a Senior Manager in the Department of Defence, in the Office of Transport Security and in the Attorney-General's Department. Earlier in her career, Rita spent four years as the National Capital representative of the State Government of Tasmania. Rita was the National Strategic Manager for the largest counter-terrorism exercise, Mercury 05, in Australia and advised the Australian Department of Health on its first pandemic influenza exercise, Cumpston.
After gaining her MBA, Rita established the consulting organisation ISSR – (Innovative Solutions for Security and Resilience), providing advice to organisations on developing their corporate resilience and conducting diagnostic assessments of key organisational capabilities. In 2010 Rita convened and led the Australian Technical Working Committee to develop the National Standard for Organisational Resilience.
In 2010 Rita was invited to join the inaugural Security Professionals Registry Board and in 2011 she was appointed to the Board Executive. In 2009, she was appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the Defence and Security Applications Research Centre (DSARC), University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. In the same year, Rita was appointed as a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Infrastructure Protection, George Mason University Law School, Virginia, USA and continues her association with GMU.
Ms Parker is an invited contributor to professional journals including to the Malaysian Journal of Defence and Security and in 2010 was a contributing author for the book Resilience and Transformation, published by the CSIRO. Rita has developed and conducts several courses as part of the University of New South Wales professional development program and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
Rita has been closely involved with a number of community and charitable organisations and is currently a Board Member on the ACT Council for Save the Children. Her leisure pursuits are travel, live theatre, running, yoga and learning Italian.