Mikala graduated from the photojournalism major at the University of Missouri in May 2017. She has experience in photojournalism, videography, audio and visual editing, has been published in The Missourian, The Leaven, The Maneater, KOMU8, KBIA, Mizzou Magazine, Religion News Service and Al Jazeera English. She was a nationally recognized photographer by the Kansas Scholastic Press Association in 2010-2013 and a winner of the 2017 Yunghi Grant Competition for her project on a pagan community in Mid-Missouri.