About Parker Ahmad

With an anticipated graduation in May 2025, Parker currently attends the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she is gaining her Master’s in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, and Museum Studies. She has taken classes in Collections Management, History of Fashion, Conservation, Costume Mounting, and Modern Textiles. During the program, she also worked on the student run exhibition All That Glitters…, where she was the display director and helped set up the physical exhibition. In her second-year, Parker is advancing her studies through an independent study in Advanced Costume Mounting, with a focus on invisibly mounting historical and contemporary garments.

Before FIT, Parker gained her interest in museum positions through her experience at the Bay Shore Historical Society. She started volunteering in the summer of 2015 and helped to organize various objects in the society. She worked with memorabilia, photographs, postcards, and other objects. Parker also helped the society in digitizing photos in the collection, tagging the pictures with key words to make them easily accessible to anyone doing research. One of her favorite aspects of the society was helping with baby negatives. Parker would help people find baby negatives of themselves or relatives that they would then be allowed to keep. Parker also helped with setting up a permanent exhibition on architect Rafael Guastavino. During 2020, while the society was closed, Parker volunteered at Sagtikos Manor, a historic home, who has an important history with the Revolutionary War. While at the Manor, Parker helped to document and clean objects in the home which ranged from paintings to bowls. She also created a video about the Manor’s garden.

While in high school, Parker was awarded the Honorable Peter Fox Cohalan Scholarship in American Studies. The scholarship was funded to help students advance their studies in history, specifically in American history. Her submission paper was focused on Aerospace Engineering, explaining how Long Island, New York and the United States participated in the evolution of aircrafts and the space race.

Parker moved on to do her Bachelor’s at Marist College. There, she majored in Fashion Merchandising, with concentrations in Fashion Promotion and Product Development, and a minor in American Studies. While at Marist, she also had the opportunity to study abroad in Florence, Italy in her Spring 2022 semester. While at Marist, she was able to advance in her studies in both fashion and history, blending her love for both. For her capstone presentation, Parker chose to focus on developing a brand that created biodegradable clothing using algae based fabrics.

All of these experiences came together to cultivate a love for fashion history which lead her to FIT’s program.