Emmel earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1993 (department of religious studies, program in the study of ancient Christianity). His doctoral dissertation, "Shenoute's Literary Corpus" (published in 2004), laid the groundwork for his current main research preoccupation, which is an international collaborative project to publish the writings of the ancient Coptic monastic leader Shenoute the Archimandrite (ca. 347–465). Emmel's Team in 2006, and in 2010 (in German). In 1996 Emmel was appointed professor of Coptology at the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology at the University of Münster in Germany. Emmel's page at the web site of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Ägyptologie und Koptologie (in German), and his web page at the university's main research web site (in both German and English). During the academic year 2010–11 he was on leave of absence from the University of Münster in order to serve as the first full-time professor of Coptology at the American University in Cairo. A short article about Emmel at the web site of the American University in Cairo.
