Carl Cowen was born and raised mostly in Indiana . He was educated at Hanover College , Indiana University, and the University of Warwick ( England ), and received his PhD in pure mathematics from the University of California , Berkeley . He was at Purdue University from 1978 to 2004, but before that he had a post-doc position at the University of Illinois and had teaching experience in junior high school and small colleges. He was Director of Purdue's Actuarial Science Program from 1992 to 1997 and was Head of Purdue's Mathematics Department from 1997 to 2002. From 2004 to 2006 he was Dean of the School of Science at IUPUI ( Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis ) where he promoted research and education at this rapidly developing young institution. In addition to his academic work, he has been involved in the governance of each of the three major mathematical organizations, and he served as President of the Mathematical Association of America from 2005 to 2007.

For many years, his primary research interests have been in operator theory and complex analysis, specifically, studying operators on a space of analytic functions given by composition with fixed functions. His primary pedagogical interests have been in teaching linear algebra, both to math majors and to engineering students. He has directed about 30 undergraduate students in research mostly on topics in linear algebra, and he has supervised several PhD students.

Prof. Cowen has been repeatedly recognized as an outstanding teacher of mathematics, having been awarded the Indiana Section MAA Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching in 1995 and the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching in 1997.