Emily was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her family moved to Austin, Texas in 1993, when Emily was 8 months old. Emily showed an unusual interest in movies at an early age, particularly The Muppet Movie. As she grew she became increasingly fascinated with movies and would often see movies such as My Neighbor Totoro, Iron Giant and Spy Kids multiple times in the theater. In second grade she was nicknamed the "Movie Girl". In third grade she had just finished reading The Hobbit when she saw Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring, and felt inspired to become a movie maker herself. At By the time Emily was 11, she had produced several shorts as well as written her first feature-length script for the zombie movie "Pathogen". In August, 2005, Pathogen won a Texas Filmmakers Production Fund grant from the Austin Film Society, and was the youngest recipient in the history of the grant. Emily wrote and produced a second feature, The Retelling, by age 16.Her third feature, My Sucky Teen Romance Premiered at SXSW in Austin, and play at Frightfest in London in 2011 and is now available on Blu Ray and DVD or VOD. Her fourth feature, Grow Up, Tony Phillips, also premiered at SXSW in 2013 and will be available on DVD and VOD in the Fall of 2014. Emily now resides in Los Angeles.