Cowley was educated at the University of Oxford where he won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics in 1981. He went on to study at Princeton University as a Harkness Fellow and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in 1985 for research into Tokamaks supervised by Russell Kulsrud.
In April 2015, it was announced that he is also President-Elect of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He returned to Princeton in 1987 and joined the faculty at University of California, Los Angeles (University of California, Los Angeles) in 1993, becoming Full Professor in 2000. At Imperial, Cowley led the plasma physics group from 2001 to 2003 where he is now a part-time Professor.
He was appointed as the Head of the EURATOM / CCFE Fusion Association in September 2008 and as Chief Executive Officer of United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in November 2009.
As of 2015, Cowley was paid a salary of between £205,000 and £209,999 by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time. Cowley"s research interests are in plasmas and nuclear fusion, in astrophysical plasmas and the laboratory, such as the Joint European Torus (Joint European Torus) and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor).
His research has been funded by Science and Technology Facilities Council (Science & Technology Facilities Council) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Council (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council). Cowley co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences assessment of plasma science in the United States.
Cowley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (Federal Reserve System) in 2014. His biography reads; His certificate of election reads: Cowley is also an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (Australian Psychological Society ) the Institute of Physics (Fellow of the Institute of Physics ), the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). In 2011, he was appointed to the United Kingdom Government"s Council for Science and Technology.
Royal Society; American Physical Society.
