Katherine Jane Parkinson (born 9 March 1978) is an English actress. She has appeared in several comedy series, including as Jen Barber in Channel 4's The IT Crowd, for which she received a British Comedy Best TV Actress Award in 2009 and a BAFTA TV Award in 2014 (having received a nomination in 2011).
She was also a main cast member of the series Doc Martin for three series, and performed the voice-overs for the games Worms Clan Wars and Worms Battlegrounds. She co-starred in Series 1-3 of Humans, a science-fiction drama on AMC/Channel 4, which premiered in June 2015.
Parkinson was born in Hounslow, London, to an English mother and Northern Irish father, the historian Alan Parkinson. She grew up in Tolworth and Surbiton, and studied at Tiffin Girls' School before going on to read classics at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She then studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art where she met Chris O'Dowd, later to be her co-star in The IT Crowd. She left her course to star in the play The Age of Consent. At the conclusion of the run, she was nominated for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Award (LAMDAA).