Figure Skating Scholastics Honors Team[3] and graduated from Novi High School in spring 2008.

In 2013, she received a degree in international studies, with a focus on political economy and development, from the University of Michigan.

[5] Emily Samuelson began skating in autumn 1995 after being inspired by a skater she saw while vacationing with her family in Switzerland.

[6] At the age of nine, she began learning ice dancing at the suggestion of her coach, Karen Lingenfelter, who paired Samuelson with her son, Kurt.

[2] Samuelson teamed up with Evan Bates in May 2000 following the suggestion of their coach, Gary Clark.

[6] In the 2000–01 season, competing on the juvenile level, they won the pewter medal at their regional championship.

Moving up to the intermediate level in the 2001–02 season, they won the silver medal at their regional championship.

They competed internationally for the first time through the North American Challenge Skate program.

Their placement at nationals earned them a trip to the Estonia International Ice Dancing Championships on the novice level, where they won the silver medal.

However, they were forced to withdraw from the competition in the middle of their free dance due to injury.

[2][7] Their withdrawal, combined with the placement of the other American teams, meant the U.S. would only have two entries to the 2008 Junior Worlds.

Skating with a minor knee injury at their first Junior Grand Prix event, in Lake Placid, Samuelson/Bates won all three segments of the competition to win the gold medal overall.

These medals qualified them for the 2007–08 Junior Grand Prix Final and also earned them a bye to the 2008 U.S. Championships.

[15] Samuelson/Bates had an up and down season in 2009–10, failing to medal in their two Grand Prix appearances but finishing 11th at their first Olympics and 9th at Worlds.

On April 28, 2010, they announced that they would be leaving long-time coaches Yuri Chesnichenko and Yaroslava Nechaeva to train with Igor Shpilband and Marina Zueva in Canton, Michigan.

[16] In September 2010, Bates suffered a complete laceration of his Achilles tendon after Samuelson hit him with her skate blade as she came down from a lift.

[20] In September, they revealed they would train in Ann Arbor, Michigan, coached by Nechaeva and Chesnichenko with choreography by Tom Dickson and Christopher Dean.