Max Owens

Associate Professor

CONTACT

Office: DAV 102
Phone: 727/873-4533
Lab: DAV 280
Email

LINKS

Curriculum Vitae

BIO

Max Owens is an expert at reading brain signals. His research interests include mood disorders, cognitive control, emotion regulation and working memory training. Proficient in the use of electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking, Owens explores the links between mood disorders and brain function, and seeks to facilitate novel evidence-based cognitive therapy for vulnerable individuals with depression.
Dr. Owens has published dozens of papers in leading national and international peer-reviewed journals. He regularly attends and presents his research at local and international conferences. Since joining USF in 2016, Dr. Owens has been awarded internal collaborative awards for his research, master's level and Ph.D. students and in partnership with the Dali Museum. He recently completed a DoD funded grant applying his expertise to model the interactive effects of stress reactivity, decision-making and AI use on soldier performance.
Owens teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in psychological statistics, physiological psychology and cognitive psychology. His career has come full circle as a professor of psychology at USF鈥檚 St. Petersburg campus, where he earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree in 2005.

EDUCATION

  • MRes Oxford university
  • Ph.D. University of London

SPECIALTY AREA

Cognition, Neuroscience, & Social

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Owens, M., Renaud, J., & Healy, A. S. (2025). Reflection Rumination Reduces Negative Emotional Processing During Goal-Directed Behavior: An ERP Study. Behavioral Sciences, 15(8), 1081.
Owens, M., Renaud, J., & Cloutier, M. (2021). Neural correlates of sustained attention and cognitive control in depression and rumination: an ERP study. Neuroscience Letters, 756, 135942.
Owens, M., & Gibb, B. E. (2016). Brooding rumination and attentional biases in currently non-depressed individuals: an eye-tracking study. Cognition and Emotion, 1-8
Owens, M., Derakshan, N., & Richards, A. (2015). Trait susceptibility to worry modulates the effects of cognitive load on cognitive control: an ERP study. Emotion, 15(5), 544-549.
Owens, M., Koster, E. H., & Derakshan, N. (2013). Improving attention control in dysphoria through cognitive training: Transfer effects on working memory capacity and filtering efficiency. Psychophysiology, 50(3), 297-307.
Owens, M., Koster, E. H., & Derakshan, N. (2012). Impaired filtering of irrelevant information in dysphoria: an ERP study. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(7), 752-763.