Emily graduated from Swarthmore College in 2010, with a degree in physics but a strong interest in biology. Before coming to Harvard, she worked with Elly Nedivi at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. There, she studied CPG2, an activity-regulated gene involved in the modulation of synaptic strength. Emily joined the lab in 2014. She received Harvard's Theodore H. Ashford Graduate Fellowship in the Sciences. Her work in the Hoekstra lab centers on the coevolution of behavioral and morphological differences between deer mice living in forested and open habitats.