Eric D. Zemper has a B.S. in Microbiology (1967), a M.S. in Microbiology and Public Health (1977), and a PhD in Educational Psychology (1982) from Michigan State University. At MSU, he was on the cross country and track and field teams, which one Big Ten championships. During his senior year, he set the Ralph Young Field record for the one-mile run (4:10.2), and became the fourth runner in Big Ten history to break nine minutes in the 2-mile run with a time of 8:59.4 on the dirt track in Jenison Field House.

For eleven years he was on the staff of the MSU Office of Medical Education Research and Development, as a graduate assistant, then as a faculty member. During the 1978-1979 season, Zemper was the interim head of the MSU women’s cross country team. From 1981 to 1985, he worked as the first research coordinator for the NCAA, where he designed and implemented the NCAA Injury Surveillance System, and was involved in the development of the NCAA drug testing program. In 1985, Zemper was hired as the first director of the sports medicine research institute at the University of Oregon in Eugene. There he researched the epidemiology of sports injuries, with a focus on head injuries in football. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine for his research in this area.

In 2000, he returned to Michigan to work at the University of Michigan Medical School. After nine years at UMich, Zemper began working as a full-time medical education specialist at the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Zemper is an inaugural member of the Howell High School Athletics Hall of Fame, and a 2013 inductee of the Greater Lansing Area Sports Hall of Fame.