Read more below, in Emily’s words

I have always been fascinated by studying and observing animals, including people.  As a child, I volunteered at an animal shelter at a young age and continued to work directly with animals throughout high school and college, moving from more domestic animals to more exotic ones, in zoos and primate centers.  I vividly remember visiting the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC on a school field trip.  They had an onsite program where they brought out insects, and I volunteered to let the hissing cockroach climb up and down my arm.  

From here, I decided to investigate graduate programs that were focused around informal (or museum) education.  While in graduate school, I continued to work as an educator and volunteer coordinator in a zoo, overseeing volunteers who were recording the behaviors of the free-ranging golden lion tamarins.  At the same time, my interests started to shift back to research on learning and behavior through a museum evaluation class that I was taking which led me to RK&A (now Kera Collective).  

My path to evaluation and research was not a direct one.  I first wanted to be a veterinarian and then a marine biologist.  My paternal grandfather was a large animal veterinarian, and my dad was a scientific researcher who studied air quality for the EPA.  Most of my early career choices focused on animals and animal behavior, specifically, non-human primates.  I studied non-human primate behavior in college and was drawn to field research and observation studies.  I worked as a zookeeper and eventually found myself migrating towards public interfacing roles in zoos and nature centers where I was facilitating educational programming for all ages, often using live animal encounters with snakes, spiders, and small mammals to connect people and nature.