Eric is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre Arts. He taught and designed scenery at the University of Iowa from 2008 to 2023. He was the head of the design program, director of graduate studies, and chair of the CLAS faculty assembly. He designed 28 productions for Theatre Arts, including Macbeth, Something Rotten!, Our Lady of 121st Street, Orlando, The Crucible, Rome Sweet Rome (the 2016 Partnership in the Arts with the Q Brothers, a modern/hip-hop Julius Caesar), American Idiot, The Luck of the Irish, The Cherry Orchard, As You Like It, Eurydice and Out of the Pan Into the FIre (the 2013 Partnership in the Arts production with The Moving Company). Eric has designed over 140 productions in California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Utah, and Wisconsin, with work touring to New York and beyond.

Eric worked extensively in the Art Department for the Fox Live broadcast of Rent in Los Angeles. The production won the 2019 Emmy award for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special.

Other design credits include work as the Associate Designer for the USITT USA National Exhibition at the 2011 and 2007 Prague Quadrennial (and Steering Committee Member for the 2011 Exhibit); the Associate Designer for Ralph Lemon’s Scaffold Room (2014) and Come home Charley Patton (2004); and designs for Madison Opera, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Utah Shakespearean Festival (13 productions, including Cyrano de Bergerac, Camelot, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, My Fair Lady, Born Yesterday), Great River Shakespeare Festival (23 productions, including Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Henry V, The Glass Menagerie), Skylight Opera Theatre (4 productions, including Chicago, Floyd Collins), Fulton Theatre, American Players Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival, and San José Repertory Theatre.

Eric was the Chair of the Scenic Design Program for the University of Illinois at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (2001-2008; 10 designs, including Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, Metamorphoses, Nine, Twelfth Night); He was the Resident Scenic Designer at PCPA Theaterfest (1995-2001; 36 designs, including The Servant of Two Masters, The Grapes of Wrath, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The King & I, Cinderella, 42nd Street, On Golden Pond, The Lion in Winter, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The 1940’s Radio Hour).

Eric’s design for PCPA Theatrefest’s production of The Grapes of Wrath is featured in The Creative Spirit: An Introduction to Theatre. His design for the Utah Shakespearean Festival’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was included in the USITT USA National Exhibition at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial.

Eric is the recipient of the University of Iowa's prestigious 2017 Collegiate Teaching Award.