Magistrate Judge Stephanie K. Bowman was born in Kankakee, Illinois. She received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and received her J.D. from DePaul University, College of Law in 2000.

Magistrate Judge Bowman spent the first year of her legal career practicing immigration law at McKinney & Namei. In late 2001, she joined Barrett & Weber, LPA as an associate attorney where her practice focused on the fields of estate planning, zoning, real estate, business transactions and litigation. She joined the court family in 2006 as a chambers law clerk to the Honorable Michael R. Barrett. Magistrate Judge Bowman was appointed to her first eight-year term as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Ohio on October 29, 2010.

Magistrate Judge Bowman is President of the Ohio Women's Bar Association, a Fellow of the Cincinnati Academy of Leadership for Lawyers and member of the Steering Committee, a member of the Cincinnati Bar Association, a member of the Federal Magistrate Judges Association, and a member of the Potter Stewart Inn of Court. Magistrate Judge Bowman was named an Ohio Rising Star by Super Lawyers in 2005.