Born in New York City, Eric received his B.S. degree from New York University in 1982. His Ph.D. work was done at U.C. Berkeley under the direction of Robert Bergman. In 1986, he returned to the East Coast of the U.S. for an NIH postdoctoral fellowship with Barry Sharpless. In 1988, he began his independent career at the University of Illinois. He moved to Harvard University as full professor in the summer of 1993.