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Emma was born on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishnaabeg territory to a family that's deeply invested in the Canadian labour movement. She is passionate about climate and migrant justice, workers' rights, and anti-capitalist struggle. In 2013, while studying at Mount Allison University, Emma co-founded DivestMTA— a student movement calling for the university to pull its endowment fund out of the fossil fuel industry. She has continued to organize with the student divestment movement ever since, bringing the struggle for climate justice off-campus with sit-ins, marches, and blockades in support of land-based resistance movements. After graduating, Emma spent a year serving as the acting Executive Director of the New Brunswick Community Land Trust where she worked with small woodlot owners to resist the corporate takeover of farm and forestland in the province. 

In 2017, Emma moved to Treaty 6 territory to pursue a Master’s degree in Sociology at the University of Alberta. Her research explores the intersections of migrant, climate, and capitalist crises, with her thesis looking specifically at migrant domestic workers’ experiences of the Fort McMurray wildfire. She also works as a research assistant at the Parkland Institute on the SSHRC-funded Corporate Mapping Project, which is investigating the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry in Western Canada. She is an organizer with Climate Justice Edmonton and Courage Coalition, and a solidarity organizer and volunteer with Migrante Alberta. She also sits on the Board of Directors of the newly-founded Alberta Workers’ Association for Research and Education (AWARE). Emma spends a lot of her time thinking about community land trusts, watching nature documentaries, and wishing Trudeau would fulfill his electoral promises.