Emma Courtland has worked as a writer, editor, film programmer, and exhibitions curator for periodicals and nonprofits in her native city, Los Angeles. The bulk of her professional efforts, however, has been on behalf the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she spent the last seven years collaborating to devise and execute a full slate of public programs focused on the vast and ever-changing intersections of storytelling and technology. She is especially interested in cultural form and narrative cognition, and how our modes of sharing stories—written or spoken words, still or moving images—shape our understanding of and interactions with the world.

Emma holds a BA in English from UCLA and a MA in oral history from Columbia. She currently serves as the associate producer of content at Wondery, the podcast company behind Dirty John and Doctor Death.