Nicholas A. Bowman is the Mary Louise Petersen Chair in Higher Education, professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs, senior research fellow in the Public Policy Center, and director of the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education at the University of Iowa. Before joining the University of Iowa, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Higher Education and Student Affairs at Bowling Green State University and a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Bowman’s research uses a social psychological lens to explore key issues in higher education, including student success, equity and diversity, undergraduate admissions, college rankings, and quantitative research methodology. He has written nearly 100 peer-reviewed journal articles that have appeared in influential outlets such as Review of Educational Research, Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Sociology of Education, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and Science Advances. He is also an author of the third volume of How College Affects Students, which systematically reviewed over 1,800 studies on the short-term and long-term effects of postsecondary education. He serves an associate editor of Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research and is a former associate editor of The Journal of Higher Education.

Dr. Bowman received a Ph.D. in psychology and education, two master’s degrees in education (one in research methodology and one in higher education), and a graduate certificate in culture and cognition from the University of Michigan. He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in education studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.