Dr. Owen received his M.D. from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed residency training in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He completed a psychopharmacology research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, during which he studied the mechanism of action and clinical effects of clozapine, an atypical antipsychotic agent. He then moved to Little Rock, where he initiated a clinical trials program for novel antipsychotics at the Little Rock Veterans Administration Medical Center. In 1992, he began to apply his clinical research expertise to health services research projects by contributing to the development of the VA-funded Schizophrenia Outcomes Module. Subsequently he received his first Research Career Development Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Service to study the quality of medication management (including medication adherence and medication prescribing) for schizophrenia. His work in this area has expanded to include studies of clinical practice variation and guideline implementation strategies. Dr. Owen is also a national leader in clinical practice guideline development and evaluation. He serves as Chair of the national Veterans Administration Behavioral Guidelines Evaluation Committee, as well as serving on the Steering and Education Committees for this effort.

Dr. Owen is the Director of the Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Center for Mental Healthcare and Outcomes Research (CeMHOR) at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. In addition to that role, he is the Director of Services Research for the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 16 Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC). He is also the recipient of an Advanced Research Career Development Award from HSR&D, and he has been funded by HSR&D for studies of the quality of medication management and guideline implementation strategies for schizophrenia. Dr. Owen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UAMS, and is Assistant Director of Residency Training for Research in the department.