Emma graduated with a BA in History of Art and Anthropology from Beloit College in Wisconsin and has two MA’s from University College London - one in History of Art and the other in Archaeology. She is also Co-Founder and Head of Development and Curation for Five | Six Textiles, a design brand and nonprofit dedicated to preserving and supporting contemporary handwoven textiles and design in Côte d’Ivoire.

Emma is a Doctoral Candidate in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University of London. Her scholarship draws on extensive fieldwork, ethnographic, archival, and material object research, situated at the intersection of contemporary art and design, impact economics, anthropology of global commerce, and material culture in West Africa and North America. She is interested in the dynamic relationships between those who make, sell, and consume handmade art, design, and craft and how those knowledge pedagogies shape the aesthetics, use, and global circulation of those objects. Her current research fuses text/object-based and practice-led methodologies that focus on Indigenous design innovation and the dynamics of appropriation and authenticity within the global circulation and market of contemporary handwoven cloth from Côte d’Ivoire. She has received funding for her research from the Association for Art History (AAH), The Karen Thakar Fund, The V&A Museum, and Goldsmiths. 

Emma received an Academic Practice Award for Teaching in 2022 from Goldsmiths and a Post-Graduate Teaching Certificate (PGCert). The PGCert program opened up new avenues of interest in pedagogical research for art and design learning. She developed a teaching framework inspired by biomimicry in her first year of the PGCert, which was published in January 2023.

Emma is on the Student and Emerging Professionals Board for the College Art Association (CAA) and has presented research and facilitated workshops at the CAA Annual Conference (2023/2024), the AAH Annual Conference (2020/2023), and the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA)Triennial Conference (2021). She has also guest lectured at other Universities across the globe and spoken about entrepreneurship and design collaboration on numerous podcasts.