He received his PhD from Texas A&M University in 2005. He specializes in American politics, representation, minority politics, state and local elections, U.S. electoral institutions, Latino politics, Black politics, and democratic theory. His recent work appears in The American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. Current projects include an examination of where and why minority candidates win state legislative office, and a study that links experimentally induced racial bias to voting behavior during an election. Eric serves in a joint appointment with the Chicano/Latino Studies Program