When she thinks of New York City, Liza Miller Davis feels that there’s just as much going on below ground as above, and that what you don’t see is both revealing and fascinating. That’s natural, because Davis is an archaeologist who works for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection as a supervisor, ensuring that all projects are in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. She oversees the team of archaeologists who perform a survey or an excavation before any water-related project can go through. “I’m very lucky. I studied what I liked and ended up being able to do that for my profession,” Davis says. Growing up in working-class neighborhoods in Queens in the 1960s and ’70s, she was an only child raised by a single mom. She attended PS 151 in Woodside, PS 89 in Elmhurst, JHS 73 in Maspeth and Stuyvesant HS. From an early age, Davis loved and excelled in math and science in an era when that was unusual for girls. Her public school teachers not only supported her academic interests, they repeatedly helped her take the next step in her education, whether applying to an elite public high school or to college, even when she herself could not envision that next step.

I loved my teachers growing up, and I always liked school.

My 5th-grade teacher recognized my interest and talent in math, and I joined the math team where we would compete. It was a lot of fun. Math, to me, is like a puzzle to solve.

I really credit Richard Sosis, my 8th-grade social studies and homeroom teacher at JHS 73 in Maspeth, Queens, with changing my life. He was a big-personality kind of guy, very outgoing. He was going to school to become a lawyer at the time, and he taught us a lot about our legal system. He informed me that I was applying for the test to Stuyvesant HS. I didn’t even want to take the test, but I did, and once I got to Stuyvesant I loved it and never looked back.

Stuyvesant had gone coed not that many years before, so there were more boys than girls at the school. I had a difficult relationship with my mother and became very independent very young. I was an emancipated minor, supporting myself by my junior year of high school.

My social studies teacher George Altomare helped me get a job as a research librarian at the UFT, so I was able to support myself through high school and college. I got my own apartment — my rent was $90 a month — on 12th Street in the Village, so I was near to Stuyvesant.

I really loved biology, and in an elective course on invertebrate and vertebrate biology we got to dissect frogs, fetal pigs and a shark. I finished early because I loved it so much I just raced through, and the teacher gave me the biological supply catalog and said, “Pick anything you want.”

City girl’s revenge: I picked a pigeon to dissect, and it came in a can. I was so excited. I ran down to the lunchroom to borrow a can opener, and I dissected that pigeon!

I think back to my earth science teacher in high school, Mr. Biederman. He had this tray filled with water to demonstrate how to read a contour map, with its mountains and valleys molded in plastic. That’s how I learned to read topographic maps, which I do now every day on my job.

I struggled a bit in algebra and geometry at Stuyvesant, and my teacher, Mrs. Abramson, noticed that. She gave me extra help and helped me through, and I learned to love those subjects, overcome my problems and succeed.

One of my high school guidance counselors, Ralph Ferrara, was very supportive and helped me apply to colleges. I didn’t even ask him for help, but he somehow knew that I needed it. He helped me to get waivers from all the college application fees and helped me get a scholarship from the Stuyvesant alumni association.

Frank McCourt was another great teacher of mine at Stuyvesant. He got us thinking about words and language. He would ask us, what are you really trying to say when you write? His class was not about grammar and sentence mapping; it was about how to develop your own voice. He was funny and straightforward, and he didn’t pussyfoot around. I remember him saying, “What does this mean? Why don’t you just come out and say it?”

The teachers who made a difference were the ones who were interested, who cared. That’s more important than what they teach you.

— As told to reporter Cara Metz