Jennifer W Owen

Jenni Owen is Professor of the Practice at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy. She is an expert on state government, including government-research and government-philanthropy partnerships. From 2017-2025, Owen was on leave to serve in state government as North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s first policy director and then as Director of the North Carolina Office of Strategic Partnerships (OSP), appointed by Governor Cooper to this new position in state government. As OSP director, she led the development of the office and of the replicable OSP model for cross-sector partnerships between and among state government, universities/colleges, philanthropy, and other entities. Among other results, this cross-sector partnership work continues to help government agencies increase their capacity to conduct and use evidence to improve policy.

Prior to her government leave, as a faculty member and Director of Policy Engagement at Sanford, Jenni taught and advised undergraduates and graduate students, directed the North Carolina Family Impact Seminar legislative education initiative (part of the network of state Family Impact Seminars); co-directed the Duke University School Research Partnership; and was the first director of the University-Based Child and Family Policy Consortium. In 2007 she was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship to South Africa and has partnered with South African colleagues ever since. In 2010, she launched DukeEngage Durban (South Africa), an annual immersive service program for undergraduates. She co-edited the book, Researcher-Policymaker Partnerships: Strategies for Launching and Sustaining Successful Collaborations. 

Owen has been the principal investigator on numerous multi-sector projects and initiatives, including an Oak Foundation-funded effort focused on non-profit capacity building; a John Rex Endowment project on children’s positive mental health; and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation’s Professional Development Initiative. She has served as a consultant to government, philanthropy, research, and non-profits, including the University of North Carolina system and the North Carolina Network of Grantmakers. She is currently a senior advisor with Fountainworks, a NC-based firm focused on solutions and impact for the public sector.  

Before coming to Duke, Owen was a senior policy advisor to Governor James B. Hunt Jr. and the planning director for the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy. She regularly serves on public and non-profit boards and in other civic engagement roles. Examples: commissioner on the North Carolina Indigent Defense Services Commission, member of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine’s Task Force on Early Childhood Obesity Prevention; board member of El Futuro; on the Policy Council of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management; member of the Pew Results First Advisory Group; and member of the National Conference of State Legislatures Evidence-Informed Policymaking work group. She currently serves on the Duke-NC Central University Clinical and Translational Science Institute Regional Community and Partnership Advisory Committee, on the myFutureNC Advisory Board of Commissioners, on the Transforming Evidence Network Advisory Group, and is the associate editor of the Social Policy Report of the Society for Research in Child Development.