Eric holds a doctorate in American History from the University of Kansas, specializing in American Indian cultures and the history of the United States West.  He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and teaches at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.  His major research focus is on American Indian education, especially the system of federal boarding schools established for Native youth in the late nineteenth century.  He is currently at work on a book about the history of Haskell Institute, as well as textbook projects in American Indian Studies and Native history.