For whatever reason, Emily has always loved fish. She has been keeping aquariums since the age of ten and could spend hours upon hours watching them. So, during her last year at Ohio State, she joined Dr. Ian Hamilton's lab and assisted in social learning experiments involving Tanganyikan cichlids Neolamprologus pulcher and Julidochromis ornatus. She also completed some of her own research while at OSU. Emily created an agent-based model using the computer program Netlogo in order to determine how novel information travels in a group.

At KAUST, Emily is currently examining microhabitat association of cryptobenthic reef fish, with a focus on family Gobiidae. She is using both genetic (COI barcoding) and morphological tools to identify these cryptic fish and look at the community differences between different microhabitat types. Find Emily on Twitter @Fish_Fetisher​​