Emma Valdés serves as in-house counsel to leading mid-Atlantic investment firm, Knollwood Investment Advisory, where she manages private investment operations and early-stage deal term review across such key verticals as enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, spatial and web3.0 technologies. Dual-trained in business and law, Emma excels at making industry jargon accessible to non-legal stakeholders, offering clear, actionable guidance on regulatory risks, potential liability pitfalls, ecosystem readiness, and ethical product design.

A trusted voice and demonstrated thought-leader with the D.C. deep tech ecosystem, Emma has contributed robust research to academic, standards, and professional publications across the gamut of Metaverse technologies. To date, she has completed work at the intersection of data privacy, cognitive liberty, decentralized governance, and cyber speech rights, as well as a forthcoming book on virtual personhood. Moving forward, her ambitions aim to enhance neurological and situational accessibility, as well as cultural sensitivity, through the power of immersion.

Lastly, as a former advisor, and now President-Elect of the Washington D.C. Chapter of the VR/AR Association, she has the pleasure of hosting industry events, expert panels, founder pitches, and resource sessions for XR-industry and adjacent builders, buyers, and investors in and around the Capitol region. By way of this, Emma is uniquely attuned to the policy posture and partnership potential around AI-XR innovation — granting her early optics into the novel opportunities propelling deep tech ecosystem growth in D.C. and across the globe.