Emilie studied History, Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology at the Universities of Montpellier (Paul Valery), of Minnesota and of the Sorbonne (Paris I). She received her Master (Maitrise and DEA) in Oceania Prehistory and Environmental Archaeology from the Sorbonne and holds a double cotutelle PhD in Prehistory from the Sorbonne and the ANU. Her PhD thesis focused on New Caledonia precolonial archaeology and looked at the relations between Kanak settlement patterns and the vegetation, involving the first application of anthracology (archaeological wood charcoal analysis) in the region. 

After completing her PhD, Emilie worked at the University of Western Australia as the laboratory manager for Archaeology, as a research assistant on Prof. Peter Veth's ARC Barrow Island Archaeology Project, and as a consultant archaeobotanist - with live projects in the Pilbara, WA; in New Caledonia with the Institute of Archaeology of New Caledonia and the Pacific; and in French Polynesia, especially as part of Jenny Kahn and Patrick Kirch NSF project "Vulnerability and Resilience on Islands Socioecosystems". She is still associated to UWA as a Honorary Research Fellow.

Emilie recently joined the ANU as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow within Prof. Matthew Spriggs's ARC Laureate Project "The Collective Biography of Archaeology in the Pacific - a Hidden History".