Who Is Emma Culligan: The Curse Of Oak Island's Expert Archeologist Explained

Look out, "Curse of Oak Island" fans; during Season 10, there's a brand new expert on the scene set to help the Lagina brothers finally unravel the mystery of the treasure that has bedeviled them for so many years. Emma Culligan is her name, and she's an engineer, archeologist, and metallurgist who studied at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Appearing throughout Season 10 and Season 11 of the program, she first proves herself valuable to the team when she helps Rick and Marty Lagina carbon date a bit of metal found during a dig during "On Their Marks," Episode 1 of Season 10. She uses a CT scan to figure out that it was probably a bunk hook. Bunk hooks were used to help cargo ships, making it even more evident that ships were traversing the waters about the island – perhaps carrying pirate treasure.

According to Culligan, ending up on "The Curse of Oak Island" was all a matter of pure fate. "It was kind of a fluke, to be honest," she told Tom Burns while appearing on "The Curse of Oak Island And Beyond Podcast" in 2023. She knew someone involved with the show, who asked for a resume — thinking she could get her a position as a personal assistant in the program. However, fellow archeologist and "Curse of Oak Island" cast member Laird Niven saw her impressive qualifications and offered her a job running the XRV system on Oak Island instead. "I thought it was spam mail," Culligan confessed, regarding the job offer she got from Niven. But the too-good-to-be-true job was, in fact, a reality. And Culligan's quite glad she said yes to the offer because working with the reality show has given her unique research opportunities.

One positive to working on "The Curse of Oak Island" is that it's allowed Emma Culligan to research pockets of Oak Island that she would never have thought to touch without the Lagina brothers' influence. Laird Niven specifically mentioned Lot 5 in the "Curse of Oak Island and Beyond Podcast," a place neither of them had considered for a dig.

It also led to an exciting discovery by Culligan and Laird Niven, which subsequently changed how Oak Island's dig teams treat gold. Culligan told the podcast that she managed to find gold residue on a piece of wood from one of the digs by using surface analysis and water data. "I was there going, 'We have to call production. We have to let them know,'" Niven explained. Minutes later, they found themselves at the gold pit, being filmed informing the Laginas of her new discovery. Culligan's reaction to the discovery? "Holy s**t!" Hopefully, she'll have many more moments worth explosive exclamatory utterances in the future.