He received a bachelor's degree in Astronomy from the University of Arizona, served three years in the U.S. Navy, and then earned a Ph.D. in Physics from Utah State University. Dr. Emmert's research has focused on empirical analysis of thermospheric dynamics and composition, performing studies of thermospheric winds measured by a variety of ground- and space-based instruments. He has been studying long-term changes in thermospheric density related to global climate change, using a 35-year database of orbital element sets. He is currently refining the methodology in order to extract information on seasonal and solar cycle variations. He is also working on the climatology of winds in the thermosphere and the effect of geospace storms on global thermospheric dynamics, and is working on integrating these results into the empirical Horizontal Wind Model.