Dr. Emerson is an Assistant Professor of Education at Touro University in NYC. Her research largely explores teacher education with a focus on the curricula and pedagogies that lead to transformations in paradigms, practices, and policies in the service of racial justice in schools. Specifically, her research has inquired into the curricula enacted in NYC schools with teachers in antiracist professional development, with a focus on abolitionist thinking and critical whiteness. In addition to qualitative methods, she utilizes arts-based educational research methods at multiple points in the research process. Her research has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Teacher Education, Review of Research in Education, Whiteness & Education, Bank Street Occasional Papers, and Radical Teacher. In 2021 she received the Dr. Isaac Gottesman Featured Contribution to Critical Thoughts & Praxis from the Journal for Critical Thought & Praxis for an article related to mothering as a site of political change.

Over the last five years Dr. Emerson has taught courses in educational foundations, urban education, childhood/elementary education, and early childhood in both MA and undergraduate programs at Touro University, Providence College, Teachers College and Barnard College at Columbia University, and Hunter College.

Originally Dr. Emerson is from Manchester, New Hampshire, where she attended K-12 public schools. She taught in both charter and public schools throughout NYC for 10 years. While she has experience in 3rd and 4th grades, her focus (and favorite!) was largely 5th grade. During that time she was named the 2018 Critical Teacher of the Year from the National Association of Multicultural Education. Dr. Emerson earned her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University in the Department of Curriculum & Teaching. Her Masters in Elementary Inclusive Education is also from TC @ Columbia and her undergraduate degree is in Sociology & Urban Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Emerson is also the mom of three little ones and she spends time in New Hampshire visiting family. In her free time Dr. Emerson likes to listen to audiobooks, read, make art, ride her bike slowly and safely, follow pop culture, and watch garbage television. She’s also involved in local organizing efforts around public libraries and school libraries - you can sometimes see her testifying at city hall with one or two of her kids.