Fowler was born in Jasper, Alabama, a small coal mining town in the mountainous north central region of the state.
Fowler has been recognized for his work in the areas of substance abuse, criminal behavior and personality assessment.
That same year, Fowler was retained by the estate of Howard R. Hughes, who had died without a will, to determine his mental status at various periods of his life.
From 1998 to 2006, Fowler was treasurer of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and a member of its executive committee.
[5] In 1998, the Psychological Bulletin of the APA published Rind et al., a meta-analytic article indicating that suffering childhood sexual abuse does not automatically cause great and lasting harm, as was sometimes believed.
The external review was submitted to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which responded by defending those processes.