Acer is an Olympic silver medallist, coxing the GB men's eight in a thrilling race with Canada and the USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.  The crew had produced an exceptional performance in the heat to win over the reigning Olympic Champions USA and qualify directly for the final  where they won the first medal for a British eight since Sydney.  

From Harlow in Essex, Acer went to school at Mark Hall Comprehensive and then Broxbourne School.  He joined University College, Oxford Boat Club after starting at Oxford and was the Oxford women's Blue Boat cox in 2000 before coxing the men's reserve crew, Isis, in 2002 and then moving up to the winning Blue Boat in 2003.  He went on to cox the Blue Boat in 2004 and again in 2005 when Oxford avenged their previous year's defeat to Cambridge.

He coxed the GB men's eight during the World Cup Series in 2005 taking a bronze medal at Eton and 5th place at the World Cup finals in Lucerne.  The crew went on to perform well at the World Rowing Championships in Gifu, Japan, finishing within touching distance of a bronze in 4th.   Acer then went to the Sorbonne in Paris to study for six months.

During the 2006 World Cup Series Acer coxed the eight to 5th in Munich and took 6th place in the World Cup finals in Lucerne.  He was then part of the British men's eight that finished 5th in the final of the 2006 World Rowing Championships at Eton.

In 2007 Acer coxed the GB eight to 5th place at the Linz World Cup, to a bronze medal at the World Cup in Amsterdam and to 5th place in Lucerne, capping off the 2007 season with a bronze medal at the World Rowing Championships in Munich.

2008's World Cup Series saw Acer coxing the eight to silver in Munich, bronze in Lucerne and a creditable gold medal in Poznan - winning their individual discipline across the series.   He was selected as cox of the men's eight that went to Beijing and came back with a fine Olympic silver medal.

Whilst at Oxford Acer came top of his year, being awarded the Top First in his undergraduate degree in Theoretical Physics & Philosophy in 2000 and winning the University Gibbs Prize in Philosophy.  He next spent a year teaching Maths and coaching rowing at a High School in America, and then returned to Oxford in 2001 for graduate study.  He passed the B.Phil. in 2003 and continued on to the D.Phil (the Oxford doctoral degree) in 2004.  Acer wrote an 80,000-word thesis on The Semantics of Complex Demonstratives, and was awarded his Doctorate in the Philosophy of Language/Linguistics the day before the team flew out to Lucerne in 2008.   He has taken time out after Beijing for work, but has kept himself busy in his spare time by cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats and completing an Ironman Triathlon, amongst other things.

Acer means “fierce, keen and eager” in Latin.  His cousin, swimmer Kathryn Evans, competed for Great Britain at both the Athens and Sydney Olympic Games.