He received his doctorate in 2000 from the University of Porto, Portugal. He is the author of over 40 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and has published three books on timber and concrete. His research interests include, besides the use of recycled and waste materials in concrete, both as aggregate or supplementary cementitious materials, the development of multifunctional concrete with carbon for infrastructure monitoring and software development for structural analysis. He has also been a visiting/invited Professor to number of Universities in Brazil, Belgium, Lithuania, Montenegro, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland.