Romy Parker is an Associate Professor and Director of the Pain Management Unit in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Cape Town. She is an active researcher who has successfully supervised numerous postgraduate students. Associate Professor Parker is the course convenor of the Postgraduate Diploma in Interdisciplinary Pain Management, the first programme of its kind in Africa.

She is an experienced physiotherapy clinician working in chronic pain management as part of the Chronic Pain Management interdisciplinary team of Groote Schuur Hospital. Her research focuses on pain, with emphasis on developing and testing mechanism-based treatments relevant to a South African context.

She is the current president of PainSA (the South African chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain), Past-Chair of the Pain, Mind and Movement Special Interest Group of IASP and an Honorary Life Member of the Pain Management Physiotherapy Group of the South African Society of Physiotherapy.

University studies:

• Bachelor of Science, Physiotherapy and Exercice Science (University of Cape Town)
• Master’s degree, Pain Science (Queen Margaret University)
• PhD in psychiatry (University of Cape Town)