Emerge (Empirical ModEl for the foRmation of GalaxiEs) populates dark matter halo merger trees with galaxies using simple empirical relations between galaxy and halo properties. For each model represented by a set of parameters, it computes a mock universe, which it then compares to observed statistical data to obtain a likelihood. Parameter space can be explored with several advanced stochastic algorithms such as MCMC to find the models that are in agreement with the observations.