In 1994, before Rowan had finished his doctoral studies in Glasgow, he began working for Jeremy Sanders at the University of Cambridge.
In 1998 Rowan left the United Kingdom to continue his postdoctoral research with Fraser Stoddart at the University of California, Los Angeles.
[1] In 2016 Rowan joined The University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering as well as that university's Department of Chemistry,[2] and accepted an appointment as the Barry L. MacLean Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise in 2018.
[3] While on the faculty of the University of Chicago, Rowan also held a position at the Argonne National Laboratory.
[4] Rowan received a fellowship[clarification needed] from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2010.