Eric grew up in Ann Arbor, MI. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his Ph.D. from MIT. His thesis work, with Stephen L. Buchwald, focused on the mechanisms of copper- and palladium-catalyzed C-N bond forming reactions. After completing his Ph.D, he moved across the Charles River to Harvard Medical School where he was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow in Christopher T. Walsh's lab. As a postdoc, he worked on the biosynthesis of a plant toxin named coronatine, which acts as a cofactor for plant E3 ubiquitin ligases. In 2009, Eric began his independent career back at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He then moved to the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he is now an Associate Professor.