After completing engineering at Adelaide University, Ralph Parsons went to the English Electric Company in Stafford, England, in 1947. From there he went to Oxford to do research for his PhD in nuclear physics.
Apart from that period of eighteen months with English Electric, Ralph spent all of his career in teaching or research positions associated with universities in Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States. For more than twenty years he was Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, where his interests focused on the interactions of molecules with microwave radiation. In the mid 1980s he was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and in 1979-80 he was President of the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering.
Professor Parsons served the Fraser Government as a member of the Uranium Advisory Council, and later the Hawke and Keating Governments as Chairman of the Australian Ionizing Radiation Advisory Council. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to education and scientific research.