Bowinn Ma, the MLA for North Vancouver – Lonsdale, is a Canadian-born child of Taiwanese immigrants in southern Ontario. Bowinn attended the University of British Columbia, where she got her BASc in civil engineering, focusing on transportation and project management. During her time at UBC, in 2007 she was only the fourth woman to be elected to serve as President of the UBC Engineering Undergraduate Society in its nearly 100-year history, one of many inspiring women paving the way for future elections to elect more women than men in recent years. Not knowing specifically what she wanted to do when she was growing up, she felt this was a great way to have a career where the central focus was helping others. However, it became apparent that, often, the greatest hindrance to helping others and solving challenging societal issues is not so much technology as it is politics. So in 2017 Bowinn, a professional engineer and project manager, did something many people with a STEM background have perhaps thought to do but could never fathom: she ran for the BC Legislature – and won, becoming the youngest member in the 2017 BC legislature. She recently just won her second consecutive election, but she admits that moving to politics from a STEM career does come with some challenges.

The big difference: Communication

“Changing the way I communicate was a big part of the transition,” says Bowinn, whose training as an engineer enforced a habit of putting an emphasis on facts and data, more than anecdotal evidence. In a political landscape where representatives with different backgrounds and experiences approach difficult issues and problem solving in very different ways, acknowledging and understanding different perspectives and points of view is paramount to ensuring progress is made. More important is effectively communicating to your constituents, as well. “Truth is not always popular, but being able to bring the public along on the conversation is important if you want to make change in a democracy,” says Bowinn. “Finding ways to explain counter-intuitive technical concepts is a difficult, but important, challenge that I’ve embraced.”

Everyone brings something to the table

We asked Bowinn how having more STEM elected officials affects policy-making, and we were instantly reminded of one key thing: policy-makers, who have to digest technical reports on various topics, simply don’t have the background to understand every document that comes before them. “Having people from a diversity of backgrounds working together as policy-makers means that you have a stronger team that is able to tackle a greater breadth of challenges.”  Equally, there can be a risk of prioritizing messaging over facts in politics, and having STEM backgrounds in policy-making ensures the facts ultimately get taken into account. Bowinn’s approach to collaborative work and communication is the attitude we need to tackle some of the most important intersections between science and politics, which Bowinn herself has identified as how we can address climate change.

Bowinn is an outstanding example of someone who transitioned from a STEM career into the policy-making/political sphere, so we had to ask for some advice for STEM people who are curious about getting into politics. “You don’t have to be curious about politics for it to already impact every aspect of your life, so you might as well be actively engaged in the process.” We at Elect STEM couldn’t agree more! 

To find out more about Bowinn and the work she’s doing in North Van – Lonsdale, check out: https://bowinnmamla.ca/