A native of Poland, he received his M.S. in Wood Technology and Ph.D. in Forestry and Wood Technology from the Agricultural University of Poznan (currently Poznan University of Life Sciences). In 1998-2004 he worked at the Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center at the University of Maine. His research area includes mechanical performance of solid wood, traditional wood-based composites as well as advanced hybrid wood-plastic and wood-FRP composites, and composites based on renewable materials derived from plants. The focus of his research is on structure-property relations with stress on the interface performance. The broader research area includes, bonding, durability, damage assessment, time dependent phenomena, and hydro-mechanical behavior in solid wood and bio-based composite materials.