Emma has wanted to be a painter for as long as she can remember, so improving her art work has always been her first goal. With that purpose in mind, she attended Interlochen Arts Academy during her junior and senior years of high school. After high school, she attended Williams College and the Maryland Institute College of Art. She also spent a winter studying art in Paris. Emma has shown her work widely, and has won a number of painting prizes, including the Peyser Prize. She has also been honored by the National Merit Society, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, and the Berkshire Arts Association.

Emma worked with the contemporary program at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which meant most of her work was with past or current Artists-in-Residence. She worked closely with a variety of artists including David Wilson, a MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient who runs the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, Taro Shinoda, a Japanese installation artist, and Luisa Lambri, an Italian photographer. Emma also worked on some designs for the future website for the contemporary program.

Emma was awarded the Hubbard Hutchinson Painting Fellowship for the year following her graduation from Williams in May 2010. She is currently showing in galleries across the country and teaching art classes at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. She will be the artist-in-residence at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in fall 2012 and a the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion in DC in spring 2012.