About Parry - Honors, Publications and Beyond Her Bio (about Parry personally)
Honors, Appointments
and Advisory Roles
Over the years, Parry and her work have been recognized by nations, leading organizations, the United Nations, the White House and pioneers of the Internet. A select group of these honors, appointments and advisory
roles is set forth below:
Selected Honours & Recognition
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FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award, presented by FBI Director Robert Mueller.
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U.S. President’s Service Award, associated with the Clinton White House and the Points of Light Foundation, which Parry agreed to accept on behalf of her volunteers.
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RCMP Child Recovery Award, received jointly with her husband, Allan McCullough.
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Recognition by the United States Congress for her work in cybersafety and cyberbullying prevention.
Major Appointments & Task Forces
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Appointed by UNESCO to create and lead its U.S. national initiative addressing the online sexual exploitation of children.
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One of 29 members of Harvard’s Berkman Center Internet Safety Technical Task Force, convened to advise 49 state attorneys general.
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One of 24 members of the U.S. Department of Commerce NTIA Online Safety and Technology Working Group, established by Congress to develop recommendations on online child safety and report to Congress.
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Part of the UK Home Office Cybercrime Task Force.
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Elected Chair of the Internet Society’s Internet Societal Task Force and appointed to the ISOC Societal Steering Committee.
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Appointed to People-Centered Internet, an organization formed by the "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf.
Selected Boards and Advisory Roles
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Founding member of Facebook’s five member International Safety Advisory Board.
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Member of the MTV Public Affairs Advisory Board.
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Member of the Ad Council Advisory Board.
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Member of Microsoft's XBox Advisory Board.
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Founder and Chair of McAfee’s Consumer Advisory Board.
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The first person invited to join the advisory board for Sesame Street Online.
Parry receiving the FBI Director's Community Leadership Award from Director Robert Mueller
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Parry with Vint Cerf, the Father of the Internet
Parry's Select Publications
Parry Aftab’s published work spans cyberlaw, privacy, online safety, cyberbullying, digital risk and, most recently, Prince Edward Island food, culture and community.
Books
PEI Cooks at Home: A Taste of Prince Edward Island
A community cookbook featuring 150 recipes and the stories
of 79 Island home cooks. 2026.
Cyberbullying Guide
Spanish- and English-language guide to preventing and
addressing cyberbullying. Pantallas Amigas, Spain, 2006.
Internet con Los Menores Riesgos
A Spanish-language Internet-safety guide for parents in Spain,
Central America and South America. 2005. Pantallas Amigas, Spain
Children and the Internet
The first Chinese Internet-safety guide. (Mandarin) China, 2004.
Inocencia en Peligro: Conviva con sus Hijos y Protéjalos Cuando Naveguen por Internet
Spanish-language guide for parents on protecting children online. McGraw-Hill, 2001.
The Parent’s Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace
McGraw-Hill, 2000. Published in U.S., U.K., Singapore and Spanish-language editions. UK and Singapore editions customized for each country.
A Parents’ Guide to the Internet: And How to Protect Your Children in Cyberspace
The first Internet-safety book written for parents. SC Press,1997.
Contributions to Collective Works
Bullying: Perspectives, Practice and Insights
Council of Europe, 2017.
Author of the chapter “Understanding Cybersafety, Cyberbullying and Cyberwellness—The Youth Perspective.”
Child Abuse on the Internet: Ending the Silence
UNESCO, 2001. Author of Chapter 21, “The Technical Response: Blocking, Filtering and Rating the Internet.”
E-Commerce and Internet Law Treatise
Edited by Ian C. Ballon. Author of “Digital Best Practices in the Children’s Industry” in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions.
The Best in E-Commerce Law
Edited by Warren E. Agin, 2001. Author of “Children’s Online Privacy Law.”
Smart Surfing: Protecting You and Your Family from Cybercrime
State of Florida, 2007. Contributor.
Columns
The Privacy Lawyer — InformationWeek
Award-winning monthly column examining privacy, cyberlaw, cybersecurity, corporate responsibility and emerging digital risks.
PEI Cooks — The Eastern Graphic and West Prince Graphic
A weekly column sharing Island recipes, food stories, home cooks and the people and businesses supporting Prince Edward Island’s local food sector.
Weekly contributor to various law journals in the US on cyberlaw, privacy, security and policy
Beyond the Bio - About Parry Personally
Parry came to Prince Edward Island expecting a quiet beachfront retirement. Instead, circumstances drew her back into action, applying decades of experience to support the Island she now calls home. If you know Parry, you know that everything with her is personal. she shares her home, her life stories, her passion...never standing on credentials or formality.
More About Her:
Parry Aftab was born and raised in the New York metropolitan area in a home shaped by two very different family histories. Her father came to the United States from Iran as a student. Her mother was American, from a family whose roots in the country reach back to the early 1600s.
Their home was international long before the word became fashionable. Visiting students from around the world, diplomats, celebrated athletes and entertainers were frequent guests, and Parry was included in conversations from an early age. She learned to listen closely, respect different cultures and appreciate that people can experience and understand the same world in very different ways.
On both sides of her family, food was central. It carried family history, cultural legacy, identity and love.
Each Sunday, her Persian aunts prepared elaborate feasts: two kinds of rice, vegetable and meat stews, warm breads, cold pickles and yogurt dishes, caviar on toasted lavash, and four kinds of kebabs, from lamb and beef tenderloin to lemon-marinated chicken and a mixture of ground chicken, lamb and beef shaped around skewers.
Her New England grandfather introduced her to food from the shore. He took her digging for clams, catching fish for dinner and bargaining for lobsters at the wharf. His clam chowder was a family recipe passed down through generations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He would even painstakingly remove the bellies from her whole fried clams because young Parry declared them "gross." Thankfully, she eventually learned to love them whole and unaltered.
The kitchen table was where food, family, stories and varying perspectives came together. Long before food became the focus of her work on Prince Edward Island, Parry understood its power to connect people across generations, cultures and experiences and bring comfort.
Those early lessons shaped how she approached law, public policy, technology and community work throughout her career: ask questions, listen first, understand and respect different perspectives and bring together people who might not otherwise be in the same room. She didn't just invite them in. She connected them.
Even her professional work was driven by a larger purpose, using law, technology and collaboration to improve public safety and well-being.
While raising two young children, Parry returned to university and completed a four-year undergraduate degree with a double major in less than two years. She graduated valedictorian and delivered the City University of New York commencement address before more than 25,000 graduates and their families at Madison Square Garden.
The experience awakened a lifelong love of public speaking. Parry enjoyed connecting with audiences, making complex subjects understandable and leaving people informed, inspired and ready to act.
She especially loved speaking with children and teenagers. Their curiosity, honesty and willingness to challenge assumptions gave her energy and hope. They also taught her as much as she taught them.
Young people wanted adults to listen, to understand what they knew, what they experienced and what they believed could work. Parry listened. That connection became one of the most meaningful parts of her professional and charitable life and helped shape her belief that the people living with an issue must be included in creating the solution.
Parry's connection to Prince Edward Island began when she met and married Islander and child-safety advocate Allan McCullough. Together, they established a home on PEI - Allan's primary residence and Parry's second home.
Parry traveled as many as 300,000 miles a year for her professional and charitable work, often with Allan. When they were not traveling, they divided their time between the United States and the Island. Parry moved easily between the two countries, although one favorite pair of shoes repeatedly ended up divided between the two homes. After moving the same single shoe back and forth several times, she finally bought a second pair.
When COVID made their two-country life no longer practical, they chose to make Prince Edward Island their full-time home.
Parry expected the move to mark the beginning of a quieter, semi-retired life by the beach, where she could cook and enjoy the Island's extraordinary food bounty. Instead, circumstances drew her back into action - this time applying her decades of experience to support the Island she had come to love and now called home.
Ina Garten has described cooking for others as a way of expressing love. Parry understands that instinct. For her, food has always been more than physical nourishment. It is emotional nourishment, memory, belonging and care made tangible.
Jose Andres has spoken about food as something that touches nearly every part of human life: history, politics, survival, immigration, community and joy. It brings people together and communicates across cultures, often without words.
Parry understands that deeply. Preserving food traditions, strengthening the systems that sustain them and protecting the people and communities behind them are underlying truths in her current work.
Few places embody those truths more fully than Prince Edward Island. Parry calls food PEI's love language. All it takes to see it is to start a conversation about butter tarts, lobster rolls or chowder.
Today, her work remains grounded in the principles she first learned around her family table: understand the people involved, value different experiences and perspectives, listen to those who live with the issues, and build practical solutions that reflect real lives.
Underlying it all is a simple belief: leave the world a better place than you found it - and help ensure that everyone can enjoy a taste of Prince Edward Island long into the future.
Parry has two adult children living in the United States and two grandsons who share her passion for cooking and food.