[Smokey Interviews] Jessica McCarty, Air Quality Researcher and Asst. Professor
Let’s meet Jessica McCarty, air quality researcher and soon-to-be Assistant Professor at Miami University.
1) Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey that led to researching air pollution?2) What are you researching at the moment? Where?I am the youngest child in my family, grew up on a farm in the Appalachian region of Kentucky in the U.S. that is a private in-holder property to a National Forest, fairly rural upbringing. From there I did graduate work just outside Washington, D.C. at the University of Maryland in College Park. Which was a big change. Living and working in such varied places made me pay attention to environmental differences and pollution. I even remember my first smog day in D.C.! I was 21 years old and thought how crazy it was to live in place with occasional bad air quality. Now, I would say my research and interests focuses more on data transparency and environmental justice for all, especially as a new mom (my daughter was born in September 2016). I want my child to have clean air, so it has put more focus on my work and definitely my personal consumption and energy usage habits.
3) Google Scholar tells me that you’ve published 61 research papers on air pollution. Wow! Do you have a favorite one (or two)? Or, which study led to the most surprising results or an Ah-Ha moment for you?I am working on a quite a few things. I working with the Molina Center for Energy & the Environment on NSF-funded work to model black carbon emissions and impacts in Mexico under near-term climate change, where I focus on fire emissions. In the Andean and Himalayan regions, I am working with UNEP, UN CCAC, and the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative to use remote sensing as a way to monitor the effectiveness of climate-smart agriculture techniques to eliminate crop residue burning in Punjab, India and Huancayo, Peru. I am also working on some food security and vegetation mapping projects for NASA. Gotta keep those remote sensing skills sharp for land, air, and fire! In February and March 2017, I was part of a team that completed NASA-funded field work on the response of vegetation to volcanic processes and activity on Kilauea on the big island of Hawaii. The volcano produces a lot of SO2 and VOG pollution. Even I fell victim to a respiratory infection from the natural source of pollution.
4) What do you wish everyone knew about air pollution?Wow! Google Scholar is really overestimating my publications on air quality and air pollution… Some of those are definitely abstracts from AGU and EGU as well as US Environmental Protection Agency conferences. Also a few citations are about my other work in mapping land-use/land-cover change and food security. But still — quite a few air quality publications. A recent article led by my colleague Dr. George Pouliot at US EPA is something I’m really proud of because it took us several years of research and outreach with state environmental agencies to come to that scientific and reporting consensus. As scientists we always push for the right answer, so working with people in the field who are shaping air pollution policies and monitoring is always an exciting challenge. I’m also known as one of the experts on agricultural burning and its impacts on air pollution. Which is cool. Not great at parties, but a good way to get invited to interesting conferences.
5) What is the most misunderstood aspect about air pollution?Air pollution, like water pollution, is a global tragedy of the commons. The air doesn’t stop at political boundaries, it doesn’t care who you are or how much money you make. So, everyone has to be committed to clean air to prevent air pollution. Thankfully, we all need air so that makes it an easier sell over other types of environmental and public health problems. At least I hope so.
6) When you put on your professor hat and teach students at Michigan Tech, how do you get students to grasp the effects on daily life of air pollution, when they likely take the air quality around them for granted?I can’t tell you how many times I have had to explain to people how ozone production can be exacerbated by warm weather. I think the media did too good a job getting the word out on the ozone hole over Antarctica that ozone pollution anywhere else on the planet seems like a very bizarre thing to people. Clearly a need for better atmospheric science education and communication.
7) It’s easy to feel helpless when I think of sustained exposure to hazardous levels of air pollution. What are some reasons or signs you can think of that make you optimistic that we may be able to significantly reduce air pollution in our generation? What are some recent examples of countries or cities successfully improving their air quality levels?My main role at Michigan Tech is as a Research Scientist at Michigan Tech Research Institute. However, when I do teach at Michigan Tech it can be hard to get the students to think about air quality, especially given its location near Lake Superior and thus some of the cleanest air in North America. I have showed them videos and pictures from my travels in Nepal, Mexico, China, Peru, and South Africa to give them a sense of different types of pollution — from smoke to dust to brick kilns to cars. Every so often, smoke from wildfires in Canada will drift down into the Great Lakes Region of North America, and then suddenly the students get it. One day of bad air and haze and they are ready to talk about air quality.
8) Could you share an anecdote or two that really stand out to you from your research or travels when it comes to air pollution? (Ah-ha moment, realization, lesson learned, etc.)I think the UN CCAC is really undertaking important work to help cities reduce their air pollution and thus reduce short-lived climate pollutants and near climate change effects. Personally, I know the air quality in Montreal, Quebec, Canada has improved since I began traveling there 6 years ago to this past year. Their efforts to increase tree cover are noticeable and the majority of public transportation and taxis are electric or hybrid (I can’t speak to Uber since I don’t use it). Those types of small investments can cause big changes. As we enter the age of mega-cities, small and large efforts will have to be undertaken to make our cities healthy places to live. Which is important since 70% of humanity will be living in cities. And that makes me hopeful. I can’t imagine 70% of the world’s population will tolerate hazardous air pollution.
9) Where can people reading this learn more about you and how can they get in touch?I’ve done a lot of field work related to monitoring fire emissions, both human-caused/prescribed burning and wildfires. There is a primal response to smelling lots of smoke from fires at night when you are trying to sleep. During my first field campaign as a grad student, I don’t think I slept a full night because I kept waking up looking for the fire. The other one that comes to mind is that I have the misfortune of being one of those people who gets sick (breathing problems, sinus problems) easily in severely polluted airsheds, which has happened to me during work travel. It has made me be more sympathetic to other countries as they try to tackle that problem, and more vocal about keeping our air quality protections in the U.S.
Start with Twitter — @jmccarty_geo. I do tweet a bit. It was your Smokey — air quality chatbot that brought us in touch.
You can definitely find me at the MTRI website — mtri.org.
10) Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a 100 duck-sized horses? Why?And starting in August 2017, I will be an Assistant Professor of Geography at Miami University, so you’ll be able to find me there, too: http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/geography/
A horse-size duck sounds terrifying. Can you imagine the decibel levels on its quack? 100 duck-sized horses definitely. I know I could kick and stomp my way out of that. Plus I have a big dog — she could help.