Dowd is a writer, illustrator and scholar who studies the history of illustration, the practice of drawing and the hybridity of reading and seeing. He serves as professor of design & American culture studies at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University, where he teaches in the MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program and the undergraduate communication design major.
He also serves as the faculty director of the Dowd Illustration Research Archive (DIRA), named in his honor in 2016. DIRA collects materials associated with 19th- and 20th-century illustration and comics.