Emma completed her BSc in mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012. She then worked as a research assistant for a year at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Energy Systems, where she was introduced to wave energy. Emma completed her PhD at MIT in 2020, and her thesis, supervised by Professor Dick Yue, was titled ‘Optimization of the geometry of axisymmetric point absorber wave energy converters.’ She then held a part-time postdoctoral position at MIT with Professor Yue for a year.
She then completed a postdoctoral research fellowship from 2021-2023 at the University of Plymouth, working with Professor Deborah Greaves and Dr Martyn Hann, expanding her expertise to floating offshore wind turbines and physical modelling at one of the global hubs for offshore renewable energy research. From 2018-2022, in addition to her PhD and postdoctoral research, Emma competed as professional cyclist. In October 2023 she started as a Career Development Fellow in Engineering at St Peter's College, University of Oxford.
Her research focuses on fluid mechanics and its application to offshore renewable energy (ORE). Her main area of interest is around the hydrodynamics of wave-structure interaction, particular for floating bodies, and its impact on the performance of devices--principally floating offshore wind turbines and wave energy converters.