Erik Christensen holds a B.S. in Ocean Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and both a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a Naval Engineer degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his 23-year career in the U.S. Navy, he was a naval engineering duty officer and deep sea salvage diver. Upon his retirement from the Navy, he began teaching at South Florida Community College. For the past seven years, Erik has been teaching both calculus-based and algebra-based physics classes face-to-face as well as an online astronomy class for non-science majors. He has been using open source textbooks and materials in all his classes for the past three years. He is currently the Chair of the Natural Science Department. Along with receiving several teaching awards from his college, he has received the NISOD Excellence Award, and the ACCT Southern Region Faculty Award, and most recently recognized as an Outstanding Textbook Advocate/Trainer by College Open Textbooks.
