Eli has taught in Duke's International Comparative Studies Program, Education Program, and Literature Program. He currently works in Duke's Social Movements Lab as the program coordinator. He earned a PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota in 2013. He wrote a book titled Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World (2019).

His research interests include: political theory, the politics of education, global studies, social movements, environmental politics, pedagogical theory, critical geography, prison and police abolitionism, anarchist studies, the commons, feminism, autonomous marxism, decolonization, actor-network-theory, the politics of waste, water and wastewater treatment, and more-than-humanist politics, among others.

He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture and Politics, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, and The Journal of Environmental Education. You can download his articles at his Academia.edu page

He also is on the editorial collective of a new open access journal, Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics.