Emily Kennedy Talmage is a graduate of Amherst college and got her start teaching in New York City as part of the New York City Teaching Fellows Program. She taught elementary special education for three years and spent one year teaching at a charter school. Ms. Talmage then got a MA in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University and worked as a research assistant at the National Center for Children and Families.

In 2012, she moved home to Maine with her husband and decided to go back into the classroom. Ms. Talmage has been teaching for four years in Lewistob Maine. She now teaches 4th grade.

She has recently become an outspoken education activist in the face of sweeping reforms taking place nationwide and in her state of Maine. She is the author of the blog Save Maine Schools.