Parrish is an associate professor of writing, rhetoric, and technical communication at James Madison University. His research interests include the rhetoric of science, environmental communication, animal studies, nature writing, and the history of rhetoric. Parrish is the author of Adaptive Rhetoric: Evolution, Culture, and the Art of Persuasion, and co-editor, with Kristian Bjørkdahl, of Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion. He has published articles in a variety of journals, including Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Literature Compass, Rhetoric Review, POROI, and The Evolutionary Review. He is currently finishing a monograph, on the subjects of animals, persuasion, and the senses, which is under contract with the University of Chicago Press for publication in their "Animal Lives" series.