James Parks, Research Specialist, earned a B.A. degree in History from The University of Arizona in 1990. In 1987, he began his career in dendrochronology as a student assistant to D. A. Graybill working on bristlecone pine dating, verification, and chronology building. As an undergraduate, Parks was awarded both the Alsie French Schulman and Edmund Schulman Memorial Scholarship and the Andrew Ellicott Douglass Memorial Scholarship by the Laboratory. In 1991, he transferred to the archaeological research program where he has worked on a variety of projects under J. S. Dean, as well as assisting in other Laboratory programs from time to time.

Since 1999, Parks has derived 434 dates from 795 archaeological tree-ring samples in the archaeological research program. From 2000-2002, he was the primary technician for the Navaho Land Claim reanalysis project under R. L. Towner, analyzing 1925 samples from 334 sites and deriving 1053 dates. Since 2004, Parks has been the primary NSF-funded technician working on the Southwestern Archaeometry grant. In addition, he has assisted M. W. Salzer on several field trips to the Great Basin collecting ancient bristlecone pine samples, as well as preparing and dating many of these samples. Parks has assisted P. R. Sheppard on field trips to Southern California, collecting tree-ring, soil and air samples, and he spent one summer analyzing fire-scarred Sequoia samples for the fire history program. Parks regularly participates in outreach, giving tours of the Laboratory and outdoor presentations to schoolchildren and adult groups. Parks recently wrapped up a study of environmental change and human adaptation in South-Central New Mexico in the late seventeenth century.