Margaret Eisenbrandt - University of Houston
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Margaret Eisenbrandt

Summer 2018

Hello! My name is Margaret Eisenbrandt and I am a rising Junior studying Biomedical Engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering. This summer I had the honor of being selected for a position in the Mickey Leland Environmental Internship Program, which gives students like me the opportunity to intern with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) as well as other environmental organizations. Mickey Leland was a congressman from Texas’s 18th district and his wife is currently a professor in the Honors College here at UH. We had an opportunity to hear her speak about her husband’s legacy during one of our TCEQ networking conferences in July. My position at TCEQ is in the Water section of the Region 12 office here in Houston. During my internship, I have gotten to shadow environmental investigators in the fields of Storm Water, Public Water Supply, Waste Water, and Surface Water Quality Monitoring. I have been given the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of environmental compliance, including permitting, sampling, investigations, and all of the documentation that goes along with ensuring that regulated entities are in compliance with environmental regulations. The Mickey Leland Program has also provided us with the resources to prepare us for future employment, through networking video conferences, mock interviews, and a final presentation that each intern will be giving during our final week. Throughout my summer as an intern here I have seen the many different ways water is impacted by human presence whether intentionally or not, and how important it is that we minimize our negative impact on one of our most vital resources, which is why I have chosen to do my final presentation on the impact that human consumption of medications has on surface water.