Dr. Bowden served as the Robert and Genevieve Patrick Professor in Watershed Science and Planning in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont and the Interim Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research. He was the Director of the Vermont Water Resources and Lake Studies Center and the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program and leads the Vermont component of the Northeastern States Research Cooperative.
Dr. Bowden’s research interests focus on the interactions among land use, land cover, and water resources. He has conducted research on wetland, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems in temperate, tropical, and Arctic biomes and has been involved with strategic planning in universities and government agencies. He founded the Water Resources Management undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of New Hampshire and helped to establish the Natural Resources MS and PhD programs there. He established the national Integrated Catchment Management Program at Landcare Research in New Zealand and was the lead Project Manager and Team Leader. Since 1986, Bowden has been a member of the core research team for the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research Program based at the Toolik Field Station on the north slope of Alaska and currently coordinates the stream ecological research component of this large, long-term, collaborative research program.
His recent research focuses on the effects of stream network structure on biogeochemical processing in stream ecosystems and on the use of next-generation, high-frequency sensors to explore whole watershed dynamics. Dr. Bowden is active in national and international programs that seek to integrate science in resource management decision making, including the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER), the National Environmental Observatory Network (NEON), the National Institute for Water Resources (NIWR), the Sea Grant Association (SGA), and the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP). Dr. Bowden received his B.S. with majors in Zoology and Chemistry from the University of Georgia (1973) and his M.Sc. (1974) and Ph.D. (1982) from North Carolina State University.
