Eric received his Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Washington's Department of Bioengineering. His dissertation involved the design, construction, and publication of the first application of a near-field scanning optical microscope for imaging live biological tissues. Based on this research, Eric has been awarded a 1999 Biomedical Engineering Research Grant from The Whitaker Foundation to develop a scanning fiber endoscope. Subsequent grants from the National Cancer Institute have advanced this novel endoscope design into ultrathin flexible prototypes while maintaining high resolution and wide fields of view imaging. Previous to academic research on scanning image acquisition systems, Eric spent four years working in the medical (ophthalmic) device industry. In 2000, Eric has been awarded a bioengineering research grant from NSF to design, prototype, and test wearable vision aids for people with vision disabilities.

Eric's research interests revolve around biomedical applications of human interface science, including technological development of novel image acquisition systems (such as scanning optical microscopes and endoscopes) and visual display systems (such as virtual retinal displays).

For more on Eric, see his faculty web page at Mechanical Engineering.