Maxim is a Professor at Curtin University, Australia. He was awarded his BS, MS, and PhD degrees from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) in Russia. He has over 30 years of research experience in physics, materials science, and rock physics, working at leading research organisations in Russia, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia.

In 2007, he joined Curtin University, where over 18 years he built a rock physics laboratory from scratch and became head of the experimental rock physics program. He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed journal papers and is the inventor of 11 international patents.

His current research focuses on the properties of subsurface reservoir rocks and minerals, including elastic and unelastic properties of rocks at teleseismic, seismic, and ultrasonic frequencies; digital rock physics; mechanical properties of rocks at the microscale (nanoindentation); and direct observation of multiphase fluid distribution inside rocks under reservoir conditions (microCT). Maxim is listed among the Stanford–Elsevier top 2% of scientists worldwide.