Emma received an MS and PhD from The University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her doctoral research explored the local adaptation to rising temperatures and her masters's research explored the role of urbanisation on nutrient limitation. After her PhD, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Irvine, where she investigated the relationship between temperature and growth rates in marine fish, and the role of salinisation on freshwater ecosystems. She was then a research associate at Imperial College London, where she investigated the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function.

Research interests

• Climate change
• Salinisation
• Eutrophication
• Urban contaminants
• Biodiversity
• Freshwater ecology
• Life-history traits
• Physiology
• Ecosystem function 

Emma is broadly interested in how humans influence the natural environment. She has broad interests in freshwater ecology but she is primarily interested in interactions between ecosystem processes and community structure in ponds, streams, and lakes.

She is particularly interested in how changes in community structure and interactions translate into changes in how ecosystems function. Her research involves a mix of biogeochemistry, invertebrate biology, fish biology, and physiology.

Examples of her current research include understanding how contemporary evolution shapes the ecosystem role of animals, stream response to urbanisation and agricultural land use, ecosystem consequences of invasive fish in lakes and streams.

Teaching

• 4SSG1016 Geography in Action
• 4SSG1011 Principles of Geographical Inquiry I
• 5SSG2024 Biogeography & Ecology
• 5SSG2064 Global Environmental Issues: Science & Solutions 

PhD supervision

Emma is interested to supervise students interested in anthropogenic impacts on the natural environment, particularly freshwater environments. Topics may include looking at the role of climate change and extreme events on freshwater ecological communities, the ecological effects of urban contaminants (nutrients, microplastics), and the influence of future environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem function.