Emmanuelle Portugal holds a bachelor's degree in Classics from the University of Rennes-II and a Master II Research degree in "Cultural and Social History from Antiquity to the Contemporary World" from the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, for which she was awarded the Donation Perrot dit Halor merit prize in Lettres et Sciences Humaines by the Chancellerie des universités de Paris. One of the Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine (FSP) primo-doctorants, in October 2011 she began a thesis in medieval history at the Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines under the joint supervision of Pierre Chastang (Laboratoire DYPAC) and Ghislain Brunel (Archives nationales), joined by Pr Patrick Boucheron. For the 2018-2019 academic year, she will benefit from the Anna Caroppo scholarship awarded by the Fondation du Collège de France.
Her thesis, entitled "Des chartes aux registres. La culture des notaires-secrétaires royaux au milieu du XIVesiècle , étude sociale et documentaire" (From charters to registers: the culture of royal notary-secretaries in the mid-14thcentury , a social and documentary study) aims to shed new light on the history and workings of the French royal chancellery, while focusing on the development of a rhetoric of royal writing in its material, historical and cultural dimensions. Focusing on the 14thcentury , her research is mainly based on the exploitation and analysis of chancery registers - veritable archival monuments preserved at the Archives nationales - and a specific documentary typology, the ornate royal charters.
Ella was a member of the editorial board of the digital journal Circé. Histoire, Savoirs, Sociétés, for which she directed the filmed portrait of Olivier Guyotjeannin, Professor of Medieval Diplomatics and Archival Studies at the École nationale des chartes.