Emma works as a post-doc researcher on the project 'From brain to behavior: cascading effects of early brain, cognitive and motor development on language ability in children born extremely preterm' by Dr. Tessel Boerma. She currently also works as a post-doc researcher at the Institute of Education and Child Studies of Leiden University on the NRO project ‘How effective is training executive functions as an impulse for academic skills?’ in which a large meta-analysis will be conducted.

In 2023, Emma obtained her PhD in the NWO project "Language impairment in the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome: a model for SLI?" (2018) supervised by prof. dr. Frank Wijnen (UU), prof. dr. Ellen Gerrits (UU/HU), prof. dr. Jacob Vorstman (SickKids/University of Toronto), dr. Michiel Houben (UMCU/WKZ), and dr. Tessel Boerma (UU). 

This project aims to describe the linguistic development of children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome in relation to their the cognitive development as compared to children with a developmental language disorder (SLI/DLD), and typically developing children. Her PhD project focused on the relation between language development and executive functions (sustained attention, selective attention/inhibition, and working memory) in both children with 22q11DS and DLD. Her dissertation is available here. For a detailed overview of the project see the website of the project (in Dutch).

After obtaining her PhD, Emma worked as a senior researcher for around 1,5 years at Koninklijke Auris Groep, an organization that provides care and education for children with speech, language and hearing problems.