Dr Carolyn Pape Cowan is a clinical psychologist and professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley. With expertise in couples therapy, families and parenting, Dr Cowan explores the transition to parenthood, marital distress and parenting issues. Alongside her husband Dr Philip Cowan, she led landmark studies on families including the Becoming a Family Project, the Schoolchildren and Their Families Project and the Supporting Father Involvement Project. They designed couples group interventions based on a family systems model.