Episode 81: Sheryl Cumming, P.Eng., Metro Vancouver Regional District's Planning and Environment Department

July 14, 2020

How does Sheryl Cumming, Professional Engineer with the Metro Vancouver Regional District’s Planning and Environment Department “pay it back” into the world with her work? For starters, she is a mentor to other women in STEM and leads by example. In this episode, she tells host Danniele how she transitioned from the Philippines into her schooling in Canada, leading to a career she pursues with passion. She also shares advice with future generations of STEM professionals and gives us a glimpse into the local and regional work she is a part of to make sure those in the Lower Mainland can adapt to climate change successfully.

Guest: Sheryl Cumming, P.Eng. (LinkedIn)

Sheryl Cumming works as a professional engineer at Metro Vancouver Regional District’s Planning and Environment Department in the Air Quality and Climate Change Division. Growing up with an engineer Dad and heeding his paradoxical advice to avoid the engineering field, she started her university experience with a major in psychology. Her inclination towards STEM apparently ran deep that soon after her family emigrated to Canada and with only a couple of months of Jung and Freud under her belt, she couldn't help but register for UBC's engineering program.

Her experiences combined led her to her current work, trying to save the world (or at the very least, help prepare the region) through her role in the development of Metro Vancouver's regional climate action strategy called Climate 2050.

Sheryl believes that women engineers demonstrate ‘she-roism’ on a daily basis. One of four daughters and now raising her own, she witnesses the strength and resilience women can bring in various faces of adversity. She sees it in this pandemic. In her own small way, when she is not dabbling in Pinterest-esque cake-decoration, enjoying the chemical wonders of processed grapes, or mourning the 2011 Canucks Stanley Cup upset, she volunteer her time and skills in the advocacy for and empowerment of women in STEM; serving as an individual champion with AWET and as co-chair of Metro Vancouver's staff-led initiative called AWSTTEM (Advocates for Women in Science, Technology, Trades, Engineering and Math).

WWEST and Best of the WWEST would like to thank the Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of BC (ASTTBC) for connecting us with the individual profiled above.

Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of BC (ASTTBC) is leading the Advancing Women in Engineering and Technology Project, a Sector Labour Market Partnership project, funded through the Canada-BC Workforce Development Agreement. The project’s goal is to increase the participation of women in the engineering, geoscience, technology and technician occupations through the implementation of diversity and inclusion strategies to recruit, retain and support career development of women to lead a system level cultural shift within these professions.

For more information on ASTTBC, please visit www.asttbc.org