As a marine education learning specialist, Dr. Rowe engages in research on free-choice learning - the kind that people do outside classrooms and other formal education settings. He uses the Visitor Center as a laboratory to study learning behavior. He recently wrapped up a five-year, $2.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support the creation of a free-choice learning lab at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, and currently works closely with graduate students in OSU's Free-Choice Science Learning Ph.D. and M.S. programs, as well as in the Environmental Sciences and Marine Resource Management programs at OSU.
Dr. Rowe has a background in applied linguistics (studying how people learn language) and developmental psychology in education, and holds a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis.