Education: Emma went to Art school in Baltimore, Maryland, then transfered to Hampshire college where she travelled around the United States visiting intentional communities of various ages, creeds and focuses for her final research project for graduation at Hampshire Collage.  She researched the feasibility of Intentional Communities as a form of Sustainable Development.  Emma received a Bachelor's Degree from Hampshire College.

Experience: Food has been a strong part of Emma's life.   She has worked at various restaurants as baker, cook and waitress.  Her research project showed her the faults, problems and setbacks that intentional communities face throughout their life cycle.   She brings this experience to The New SHIRE Institute so when we help create SHIRE's we will not repeat the mistakes of previous communities.

I was born and raised on the Central Gulf Coast of Florida.  My family brought me up to appreciate art, writing, and the natural world.  My first year and a half of college were spent at the Maryland Institute College of Art, pursuing a lifelong interest in the visual arts.  I took a leave of absence from MICA while I researched other college options (including Hampshire College in Amherst, MA).  During this break from formalized upper education, I studied silver smithing in San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico, at Sterling Quest.

Once at Hampshire College, I pursued a course of study I referred to as "Sustainable Development". This investigation of homesteading, environmental history, transportation, urban planning, and communitarian experiments culminated in a research project titled "Looking Forward: Tracking the Contemporary Intentional Community Movement".  This project involved visiting eight Intentional Communities within the USA and evaluating the visible and invisible structures of the communities, examining them as potential examples of sustainable development.  This academic interaction with Intentional Communities tempered my optimism about "Utopianism", but I still am interested in the potential of groups willing to experiment on the technologies needed to face the real issues of sustainability we currently face.