After growing up in Needham Massachusetts, Erik attended Gustavus Adolphus College for his B.A. in Physics. He worked in Vidya Madhavan's Scanning Tunneling Microscope Lab at Boston College in 2010 helping to reconfigure a cryogenic UHV STM as well as Etching STM Tips. Erik started working in Dale Van Harlingen's group as a PhD student in the spring of 2012. He is currently working on building a Scanning Squid Microscope to investigate networks of Josephson junctions with unconventional current phase relations.

When not chained to a dilution refrigerator, Erik enjoys hiking, camping, playing ultimate frisbee and participating in the Physics Graduate Student Association activities.