UTD Salutes Legacy of Center for Children and Families Founder

Center for Children and Families (CCF) founder and psychology professor Dr. Margaret Owen will retire May 31, 44 years after her first teaching assignment at The University of Texas at Dallas, an institution she enriched with her decades of service.

“Dr. Owen’s leadership and versatility have made her an extremely valuable faculty member,” said Dr. Inga H. Musselman, provost, vice president for academic affairs and the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair of Academic Leadership. “She has been an outstanding instructor, but there is so much more. She also was interim dean of the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) on two separate occasions while serving for 14 years as director of the Center for Children and Families. What makes it even more gratifying is that she was willing to do whatever was needed on a moment’s notice.”

Owen’s research has addressed influences on childhood social, cognitive and emotional development, including family characteristics and relationships, socioeconomic status and culture. She is known for studies of the predictors and consequences of mother-child and father-child interactions and the effects of child care experience on relationship qualities and child outcomes.

“Her pioneering research on the impact of early child care and cultural contexts on child development challenged deficit-based perspectives, instead highlighting the strength and resilience of diverse caregiving environments,” said Dr. Mandy Maguire, the Robinson Family Professor who succeeded Owen as CCF director. “This lens has been carried down through a generation of students who were lucky enough to work under Margaret’s mentorship. She didn’t just study children and families; she also built programs that honored them, creating lasting systems of support that continue to shape developmental science and improve lives.”

In 2009 Owen was named the first director of CCF with the objective of translating BBS research on child development into practice in the community through outreach programs, service and research fairs, and public lectures.

“Dr. Owen’s legacy is one of vision and a continued commitment to children and families,” Maguire said. “Through the Center for Children and Families, she built a model where research, student training and community outreach work together — where science not only informs practice, but also is deeply grounded in the lived realities of the families we serve.”

“Through the Center for Children and Families, she built a model where research, student training and community outreach work together — where science not only informs practice but also is deeply grounded in the lived realities of the families we serve.”

Dr. Mandy Maguire, director of the Center for Children and Families

Owen explained that the sense of ownership and pride among CCF’s core faculty members grew slowly as people figured out how they were a part of its mission.

“Now, there’s a greater recognition of how what we’re doing in the community feeds back into research — a growing sense that we can be a part of something more,” she said.

Among CCF’s achievements, Owen specifically mentioned the success of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

“The REU has involved many of our faculty as we develop professional training for undergraduate students and show them ways in which developmental science is used in our community — how it can touch people’s lives,” Owen said. “The best achievements of CCF aren’t things I did personally. They were a product of multiple faculty members buying into what we were becoming and what we could be.”

Owen was a key investigator in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development conducted by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This national study of the effects of child care recruited over 1,300 newborn children and their families in 1991 and followed them from infancy to age 15; follow-up has taken place at age 18 and into adulthood. Most of the data from this study are in the public domain, widely used in examinations of effects of children’s experiences on developmental trajectories of behavioral adjustment, achievement, health and well-being from infancy through adolescence and young adulthood.

“As an investigator on the NICHD study, we had questions we wanted better answers to, like the combined effects of child care and family experiences for children,” Owen said. “We knew there were big holes in the existing research, and we needed to study a very large sample from lots of different communities. There was a lot of controversy, but I’m so glad to have been a part of that study that could contribute so much.”

“Dr. Margaret Owen is that rare person that works to lift up those around her and leave all that she touches better than she found it. She is brilliant, kind and gracious. … She will be missed within our halls, but her impact on BBS will be felt long into the future.”

Dr. Adam Woods, dean of the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Her current NICHD-funded longitudinal studies of development stem from the Dallas Project on Education Pathways, which followed more than 400 Black and Hispanic toddlers from low-income households through seventh grade. The research focused on learning about trajectories of children’s self-regulation abilities, school readiness, achievement and adjustment in the contexts of parent-child relationships, school and culture.

“Few have had a greater role in elevating the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences than Dr. Owen,” said Dr. Robert Stillman, professor of speech, language, and hearing and associate dean of graduate education. “From her groundbreaking research on factors relating to young children’s educational success, to the formation and leadership of the graduate program in human development and early childhood disorders and the Center for Children and Families, Dr. Owen’s contributions are significant and lasting.”

Owen received her doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in human development from The University of Kansas and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Oberlin College.

“Even while I was in graduate school, I was still deciding what to do. You just have to get into things and realize how much you like it,” she said. “In the end, I’ve done what I felt I could contribute and what I wanted to do, and I worked with great collaborators. I feel very good about that.”

Owen’s first teaching position at UT Dallas came in 1981, and in 1995, after 12 years at the Timberlawn Psychiatric Research Foundation, she joined the University full time as an associate professor. She served as interim BBS dean from 2018 to 2019 and from 2023 to 2024.

“Dr. Margaret Owen is that rare person that works to lift up those around her and leave all that she touches better than she found it,” said Dr. Adam Woods, BBS dean and Aage and Margareta Møller Distinguished Professor in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. “She is brilliant, kind and gracious. She has driven our understanding of development, parent-child relationships and the psychology of the family to new heights. She will be missed within our halls, but her impact on BBS will be felt long into the future.”