Only three current members of Congress have Ph.D.s in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) field.

[Celerity]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_politicians_with_doctorates

Jerry McNerney Democrat CA-11 Mathematics University of New Mexico

Bill Foster Democrat IL-11
Physics Harvard University

Shri Thanedar Democrat MI-13 Chemistry (Polymers/Organometallics) University of Akron

No current US Senators have one.

We can add another in the US House in 2026:

Megan O’Rourke (Democrat), running for NJ-7, got her Ph.D. in agricultural ecology from Cornell University, earned tenure at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), and worked as a government scientist—until President Donald Trump’s administration left her work in limbo.

https://www.science.org/content/article/pushed-out-trump-new-jersey-ecologist-launches-bid-congress

Hopefully there are others running as well.

We need far more STEM Ph.D. scientists and far less bankers/investors, business executives, corporate lawyers, etc in Congress.

[Bayard]

1. Only problem with that,

Is that scientists do not tend to be the glad-handers required for politics. But, I agree with you--more independent thinkers!

[JT45242]

3. People who are scientifically literate yes, PhD not so much

Former HS science teacher and currently working in education and assessment.

This was how a friend described it to me. When you get a BS in chemistry you learn a decent amount about all kinds of chemistry. So you have knowledge a few feet deep in a very wide area.

When you get a master's degree, you specialize in one corner of that field -- organic, polymer, whatever. You go a hundred feet deep in one corner of that field.

When you get a PhD you hyper focus you go a mile deep in a postage stamp area. He had a PhD in the chemistry of milk chocolate. Worked on making the soft batch cookie as a professional.

Here is the real point. We don't need people who have that depth of knowledge on a tiny area of science in government. We need people who why climate change is a problem that must be dealt with or there are deadly consequences. We need people who know and can articulate why vaccines and vaccines mandates are important to maintain a healthy society. We need people who understand why clean air and water are fundamental human rights and not hindrances to business interests. None of that requires a PhD or even a STEM degree. It requires scientific literacy.

We DESPERATELY NEED a scientifically literate population. It's been part of education standards since Sputnik and the space race.

[DFW]

5. I tend to agree, and had the privilege of getting that view reinforced.

In July 2012, I got an invitation to meet with then-President Obama in Washington for an hour. From memory, some of the subjects covered were the Syrian civil war, Putin, health care costs, Republican election cheating and the Egyptian economy and why its health was so important to the region. I posted about it on DU—after the White House sent me the photos, of course!!

I never got to spend anywhere near that much time with Bill Clinton, but he seemed to be very much cut from the same cloth.

Compare those two to W and Trump, and it’s obvious there is no comparison.

My forty year old nephew has a PhD in engineering, and except for the fact he is not interested, he might have made a good congressman, but to be president, your knowledge SHOULD be much broader.

By the way, I do not agree that a law degree is disqualifying per se. That is a very generic term. A lawyer who got his degree in corporate law or criminal law, maybe not. My younger daughter got her degree in international law, is widely traveled, multi-lingual, has worked with the UN in western Africa, AND she has good people skills. She could have made a serious presidential candidate except for two things: she isn’t in the slightest bit interested, and she’d never want to take that big a salary reduction. Oh, well….

[iemanja]

4. I'd like to put in a word for humanists and social scientists

Disciplines within those areas teach crucial critical thinking skills and impart values of civic engagement.
Science is great, but there are other valuable ways of knowing.

[tanyev]

6. No surprise they're Dems. Although the Pukes do have several horribly disappointing M.D.s.

😒