It is fact that New York City and its suburbs have the best tap water (and thus, the best bagels and pizza). You turn on your tap, and there’s no doubt that the water pouring out is clean and safe to drink. That confidence would not be possible without environmental engineers like Eileen Feldman.

Environmental engineering includes a wide range of specialities, from monitoring air quality to studying storm water. Pelham resident Feldman works on water and waste water engineering, focusing on drinking water.

“It’s a little bit of a mix of chemical engineering, civil engineering, sometimes mechanical,” she said.

Feldman has an undergraduate degree in environmental systems engineering, and at the same time, she obtained a business degree.

Her interest in environmental science was sparked at a young age, “I grew up at the Jersey shore, where there was a lot of pollution in the 1980s, all sorts of things washing up on the shore,” she said. “We couldn’t go in the water a lot of times because of contamination.”

“I kind of always knew I was drawn to things that were environmentally based.”

Feldman encourages girls to seek jobs in science, technology and engineering. “Go after every opportunity that’s out there, don’t assume that you won’t get it,” she said. “If there is a cool camp or a cool scholarship or a program, go for it.”

Editor’s note: This profile is the last of a four-part series on women in science in Pelham published as part of Pelham Reads.