Wikipedia:Mika Tosca

Mika Tosca is a transgender climate scientist currently based in Chicago. After receiving a master's and PhD in climate science at NASA, she left climate research to teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Here, she explores questions related to climate change from an artistic lens. She currently researches how artists can help communicate climate science more effectively, addressing the urgency of climate change.

Tosca lives in Chicago with her partner and their dog. She enjoys running and is a self-proclaimed “weather weenie.”

Early life and education
Tosca has been an avid runner her whole life, and continues to run marathons today.

After graduating high school, she worked towards a bachelor's degree at the University of Connecticut, where she graduated with honors in 2006. In 2008, she received the NASA Earth and Space Graduate Fellowship (NESSF), which brought her to the Los Angeles area. While completing the fellowship, she received a master's degree in Earth System Science from the University of California at Irvine (UCI). She then additionally completed a PhD in Earth System Science at UCI.

Career and research
Tosca received both her master's degree and PhD in Earth System Science. During her PhD program and in partnership with the NASA Earth and Space Graduate Fellowship, Tosca researched how the climate system is interconnected to landscape wildfires, and studied aerosol emissions using Earth system models. As a postdoctoral scholar, she continued this work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA, working with David Diner. At NASA, she researched how climate, the clouds, and wildfires interact, using satellite sensors. Her research with NASA took her as far as Namibia, South Africa, in 2016, where she observed the relationship between wildfire smoke and cloud formation as part of the NASA ORACLES field campaign.

In 2017, Tosca accepted a position as an assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which she maintains as her current position. Here, she researches the connection between art and science, investigating whether artists and designers can help scientists conduct climate science more effectively, and looks into answering contemporary climate science questions through an artistic lens.

Awards and honors
Tosca received an undergraduate degree with honors distinction from the University of Connecticut in 2006. In 2008, Tosca received the Earth System Science Graduate fellowship at NASA. This 2-3 year paid fellowship accompanies students already enrolled in a masters or doctorate program. The fellowship funded the research that Tosca pursued during her master's and PhD programs. NASA also funded Tosca's postdoctoral research.

Notable publications

 * Global impact of smoke aerosols from landscape fires on climate and the Hadley circulation. Tosca's team used remote sensing observations to characterize the climate response to smoke aerosols. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2013.
 * Dynamics of fire plumes and smoke clouds associated with peat and deforestation fires in Indonesia. Tosca estimated the height of smoke over Borneo and Sumatra, and characteristic sensitivity to El Niño and regional drought. AGU, 2011.
 * Do biomass burning aerosols intensify drought in equatorial Asia during El Niño? Tosca measured the sensitivity of smoke clouds to regional drought during El Niño years, and overarching effects on the climate. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2010.
 * Human-caused fires limit convection in tropical Africa: First temporal observations and attribution. With her team, Tosca used temporally-offset satellite observations from 2006 to 2010 in northern Africa to measure the effect of fire aerosols on convective cloud dynamics. AGU, 2015.
 * A Global Analysis of Wildfire Smoke Injection Heights Derived from Space-Based Multi-Angle Imaging. Tosca analyzed globally distributed wildfire smoke plume injection heights to provide a resource to better model smoke dispersion for climate and air quality applications. MDPI, 2018.

Public engagement
With her research, Tosca advocates for better public awareness of the urgency of the climate crisis. She has been invited to speak on ways to combine art and science to effectively communicate climate science. Tosca believes that artists could help scientists better communicate the seriousness of the climate crisis to the public.

Tosca has been invited to speak at many notable institutions regarding her work, including the University of California, Irvine, the University of California, Santa Barbara, Columbia College in Chicago, the Headlands Center for the Arts in California, the AGU Fall Meeting, Miami University in Ohio, and the University of Michigan.

Tosca is also an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. She looks into the intersection between contemporary queer, feminist, and environmental issues. She believes that the LGBTQ+ community could be revolutionary in combating the climate crisis.