At first glance, Emma Brennan-Wydra ('11)'s career might seem like a winding path, from aspiring chemistry professor to ballroom dance instructor to librarian-in-training to data analyst at the New York Times. But beneath these pivots lies a consistent thread: a passion for shaping and sharing knowledge to inform, inspire, and empower others.

"I’m really motivated by learning and helping other people get information that they need,” Emma reflects. “I realized I don't necessarily need to be this super deep expert on one topic. I wanted to build things and do things that enable people to answer their own questions."

The Plan—And the Pivot

From Emma’s earliest days at Commonwealth, they had a well-defined academic plan. "I completely fell in love with chemistry when I took it at Commonwealth," they recall. They also immersed themselves in LGBTQ organizing and feminist initiatives and set their sights on a dual major in chemistry and gender studies at Yale.

"I was the only person I knew from college who did not change my major at least once," Emma says. “I did not give myself the flexibility to do that. I don’t know if it was good or bad. I did not enjoy studying chemistry in college, but I was just like, ‘This is my thing.’"

Emma intended to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry after college and aspired to become a chemistry professor before age thirty, but those plans came to a halt during a summer research internship, where Emma found the hands-on lab work less intellectually engaging than expected. "I was still really excited about research and the production of new knowledge," they explain. "But it sunk in for me then that when you're doing it as an academic career, you're going really, really, really in-depth in one particular topic, and that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do.”

By their junior year of college, Emma had to face a tough decision—if a Ph.D. in chemistry wasn’t the right path, what was? The answer arrived unexpectedly, during a visit to Yale’s medical library for a class on the history of reproductive health. Watching a medical historical librarian guide their class through century-old pamphlets and posters, Emma had an epiphany. "That sounds like a fun job," Emma remembers thinking. The idea of being an academic librarian—facilitating research, working with diverse topics, and helping others access information—beckoned as a new path.

Finding the Right Fit

When library jobs proved elusive after graduation, Emma took an unexpected turn as a ballroom dance instructor—at the very same studio where they had been involved in Commonwealth’s early ballroom dance program. Drawing on the skills they had developed starting in their sophomore year, Emma found joy in helping beginners gain confidence on the dance floor. "It was probably the most engaging job I've ever had," they say. Two years later, seeking new challenges, Emma enrolled in the American Library Association (ALA)-accredited information science program at the University of Michigan, the next step in their path toward becoming an academic librarian. But even this path evolved. Rather than pursue traditional library science, Emma gravitated toward programming and statistics while working in engineering education research. "I ended up veering off in my own direction in the curriculum," they explain.

After graduate school, Emma returned to Yale, where they helped medical school faculty and administrators plan and implement programs to assess students, educators, and curricula. Later, they managed research data in an interdisciplinary lab focused on autism. These positions confirmed their talent for solving information puzzles and working hands-on with data. Today, as a senior data analyst on the Games team at the New York Times, Emma analyzes player behavior, designs experiments, and helps teams understand how new features are performing. "When somebody says, 'I don’t understand how this is working' or 'something unexpected is happening'... If I’m able to either answer their question or at least get them pointed in the right direction, I find that just really fulfilling."

Emma’s career path exemplifies how adaptability and curiosity can open just as many doors as a well-defined plan. "I think at Commonwealth, I certainly felt this way... if you're smart and you like research, the thing that you do is get a Ph.D. But I had a limited understanding of the range of careers or things you can do if you like to learn, you like new information, you are smart… it turns out those qualities are useful in most jobs outside of academia as well."

Emma’s advice for Commonwealth students? "Try new things," they urge. "Don’t constrain your path or your mind artificially. You don’t need to put yourself into a box."  

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