Dr. Eric Parsons is an associate teaching professor of economics at the University of Missouri and is responsible for teaching Principles of Microeconomics to nearly 2000 students each year. Dr. Parsons also serves as the department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies.

During his time at Mizzou, Dr. Parsons has won numerous teaching awards, including the 2022 William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, the Walter L. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Fellowship and Nouss Outstanding Faculty Fellows Award (x2) from the Department of Economics, and the Purple Chalk Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Science. In 2012, Dr. Parsons was named an Emerging Education Policy Scholar by the Thomas B. Fordham and American Enterprise Institutes and in 2014 received the Mizzou Advantage Non-Tenure Track Research Faculty Award.

In addition to teaching, Dr. Parsons conducts research on a variety of topics in public policy with a focus on school and teacher quality, value-added modeling, and the measurement of student poverty. In addition to having published scholarly articles in well-respected academic journals, he has also served in an advisory capacity with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Kansas City Missouri School District, and the Missouri Attorney General's Office.

Prior to working at the University of Missouri, Dr. Parsons taught mathematics, statistics, and economics at a Kansas City-area community college and served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the East African nation of Uganda.