Osswald is co-founder and present co-director of the Polymer Engineering Center.[2] The center is dedicated to the solution of problems in the plastics industry through education, training, and research at the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2001.
Osswald serves as the English-language editor of the Journal of Plastics Technology[3] and as an editor for the Americas of the Journal of Polymer Engineering.[4]
Osswald is author and co-author of several influential books in plastics engineering including the International Plastics Handbook. His work has been translated into many foreign languages, including Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
“Plastics Testing and Characterization - Industrial Applications”, with A. Naranjo, M. Noriega, A. Roldán and J. Sierra, Hanser Verlag, (2006). ISBN978-1569904251
“Materials Science of Polymers for Engineers”, with G. Menges, Hanser Verlag, (1996, Japanese edition 1997, Korean edition 1999, 2nd ed. 2003, 3rd ed. 2012). ISBN978-1569903483
”An Introduction to Experimental Analysis of Stress and Strain” with J.J. Comer and R.L. Pendleton, SDSM & T Press, (1983).
Osswald is also the series editor of Plastics Pocket Power (Hanser Verlag, 2001), which currently includes 6 books. [6]
Osswald was born in Bogotá, Colombia. At the age of 4, his family moved to Cúcuta, Colombia. After graduating from High School, he was an exchange student in Rapid City, South Dakota with Florida Cultural Exchange for one year. He returned to Rapid City to get his B.S. and M.Sc. degrees in 1977. He then continued his graduate studies in Urbana, Illinois where he met his wife.
Osswald and his wife, Diane, have a son, Paul, and a daughter, Ruthie, and were married in Aachen, Germany in 1988. They live in Madison, Wisconsin.