Ignacio Pérez Rey, a researcher at the Research Center for Technologies, Energy and Industrial Processes (CINTECX) and a member of the GESSMin group (Safe and Sustainable Management of Mineral Resources), has been awarded the “Young Rock Engineer Award” 2025, a recognition granted by the International Society for Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering (ISRM).
The award was presented during the EUROCK 2025 congress, held in the city of Trondheim (Norway). This distinction recognizes the excellence of young professionals who stand out for their innovative contributions to engineering, the pioneering use of new methods and materials, and their commitment to sustainability and the promotion of the profession.
Specializing in the study of tensile strength and deformability of rocks, Pérez Rey has developed an outstanding research career in the field of geotechnical engineering. In 2024, he was already recognized alongside Professor Leandro Alejano with the Giovanni Barla International Award for the best scientific article of 2023, for a study on unique geological structures, including the emblematic Pena do Equilibrio in Ponteareas.
Pérez Rey also leads the TRACONROC project, one of the three winning projects in the latest CINTECX CHALLENGE call. The project focuses on analyzing the mechanical behavior of rocks under confined tension, in collaboration with Leandro Alejano Monge and Xian Estévez Ventosa, also from the GESSMin group.
The leader of TRACONROC has also been one of the driving forces behind the recently launched initiative “Metallic Ores Under the Microscope”, a virtual museum that makes the 200 most abundant mineral species in the Earth’s crust accessible to the public. This initiative involved several CINTECX researchers from the Xeoda teaching innovation group at the University of Vigo. It is a digital adaptation of the book A Practical Guide to Ore Microscopy – Volume I and II, written by Ricardo Castroviejo, emeritus professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and published by Springer in 2023.
This new recognition consolidates Ignacio Pérez Rey as one of the most prominent emerging figures in the field of rock engineering at the international level and highlights the excellence of the research carried out at CINTECX.
