Erik is an Enterprise Fellow at the University of South Australia (Creative-Architecture); director of the Playful Cultures Lab (part of the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments); UWA Honorary Research Fellow; honorary professor at Universitas Bunda Mulia, Jakarta; Honorary Professor of Games, Immersive Media & Extended Reality at the University of Salford, UK; and Curtin University Emeritus Professor. He was previously UNESCO Chair of Cultural Heritage and Visualisation, and Professor at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. Over 2020-2025 he was also Honorary Research Professor at the Australian National University. He is a senior associate at Outside Opinion and member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts.
Previously he was Visualisation Theme Leader and Steering Committee member at the Curtin Institute for Computation (CIC) and a past Dean of Research and Graduate Studies. Prior to Curtin, he was DIGHUMLAB's inaugural Project Leader, reporting to four Danish universities, co-led DARIAH eu's research and engagement, and represented Denmark at CLARIN EU and NeDiMAH.
He is a chief investigator on four recent Australian Research Council grants (involving research infrastructures and cultural heritage), and an Australian Research Data Commons Platform Grant. He trained as an architect, and architectural historian, received a second masters (with honours) in philosophy, and his PhD (Australian Research Council Industry Scholarship) was from two Faculties (Engineering-Geomatics and Architecture) with Lonely Planet as the industry partner. A Fulbright scholar, he has been invited to speak in over 20 countries and has written or co-edited 11 books so far. He specializes in virtual heritage and serious games and was recently a visiting scholar in Finland. He has been teaching multimedia since 1990 but designed his first computer game at the start of the 1980s and wrote New Zealand's first degree in Performing and Screen Arts.
He currently teaches architectural history and an architectural elective in advanced digital media. He is supervising a PhD in Australian GLAM collections meta-games/interactive fiction, and another in virtual reaility, aesthetics and historical Chinese architecture, an honours on horror game design, and co-supervising a PhD in architectural design and game design (with a focus on Unreal). More PhD opportunities can be viewed on the UniSA PHD projects website. Prior to academia, he worked for Digital, Compaq, Hansen Technologies, and London Council. 
In 2023 he was cochair of ICOMOS General Assembly's Digital Heritage theme, UniSA academic lead of a Cooperative Research Council application, and invited adjunct Professor, by Universitas Bunda Mulia, Jakarta. In June he was invited to speak at the University of Milan and University of Siena, Italy. In August he spoke in Melbourne, and in Sydney in September. In October he was invited to speak in Trondheim by NTNU (where he ran a game design workshop as well) and spoke at book launches in Salford, Bristol and Cardiff. He can be followed on Bluesky or LinkedIn. 
In 2024 he was a reviewer for the European Research Council and invited to speak in Seoul at the launch of the new Korean heritage framework. He led a successful Australian Research Council Discovery application and was part of a successful LIEF application.
In 2025 he co-chaired DiGRAa in Adelaide (in February) and organized a free mini-symposium and workshop event during Adelaide Design Week (on 22 August) on AI and 3D world-making. He currently leads an Australian Research Council Discovery grant:  A Gamified 3D Cultural Heritage Platform for Archaeology and Architecture and is an investigator on ARC LIEF: The Australian Emulation Network Phase 2 - Extending the Reach.