Emma was raised in Hertfordshire and studied History at QMW, London University where she was awarded the Draper Prize for her finals results. After an MA at UCL, she moved to Trinity College, Cambridge to study for a PhD under the supervision of Gareth Stedman Jones. In 2000 she was awarded the Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal, awarded annually for the best history dissertation at Cambridge University. After a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge and a visiting fellowship at l'université de Paris VIII, and a Gilder-Lehrman Senior Fellowship in New York, she joined the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 2005. She left UEA in 2023 to take up a new position as Professor of History and Head of School at Queen Mary, University of London.
Emma teaches courses on the social and cultural history of Victorian Britain and is active within the wider historical community. She is currently the President of the Royal Historical Society, having served previously as the Society’s Honorary Director of Communications and as their Literary Director between 2010 and 2016. She has been involved in many scholarly publishing ventures, including as the editor of History, of Cultural and Social History, and Historical Journal. She currently sits on the board of the popular history magazine, History Today.
She lives in Norwich with her partner, David Milne, and two children, Benedict and Anna.
