Marie-Pierre Laborie was born in Montpellier (France) in 1972 and received an engineering degree from ENSTIB (Wood science and Timber Engineering, University of Nancy 1, France) in 1996. In 2002 she earned her PhD in Forest Products at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (USA) with a dissertation on the wood/adhesive interphase morphology. She subsequently joined the faculty of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Washington State University (USA) and developed her research program in the area of bio-based polymers and composites. There, she received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor in August 2008. During her sabbatical in the fall of 2008, at the International School of Paper, Print media and Biomaterials (PAGORA) of Grenoble Polytechnic Institute (France), she focused her research on bio-based nanocomposites. She now holds the chair in forest Utilization in the college of Forest and Environmental Sciences at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. She currently serves on the editorial boards of several international scientific journals related to materials from renewable resources and is the Award Chair of the Cellulose and Renewable Materials Division of the American Chemical Society.