Just a few weeks ago, CINTECX’s researcher Bel\u00e9n Riveiro received in Santiago de Compostela one of the awards of the first edition of the Real Academia Galega de Ciencias-Universidad Intercontinental de la Empresa Awards for young researchers and this week she traveled to Madrid to collect the award that this institution annually grants to the best young researchers at the headquarters of the Royal Academy of Engineering. She received the award at a ceremony held on Tuesday evening at the headquarters of the academy from its president, Jaime Dom\u00ednguez Abascal.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it is an honor to receive such a prestigious award at a national level and awarded by scientists as renowned as the academics of the Royal Academy of Engineering\u201d, explains the professor, to which she adds that she feels that this award \u201ccompensates for the efforts and sacrifices made over the last few years, not only by me, but also by my colleagues in the Applied Geotechnologies group; therefore, this award is shared with them\u201d.<\/p>\n
Along the same lines, she also thanked the RAI for presenting awards \u201cwhich represent recognition and encouragement for engineers in our country to contribute to excellent science\u201d, \u201cwe scientists love this profession\u201d, emphasized the researcher, who also had words of gratitude for the directors of her research group, Pedro Arias and Henrique Lorenzo, \u201cmy laboratory colleagues, the doctoral students who over the years have contributed to generating knowledge in our group, as well as the different entities that welcomed me throughout my postdoctoral training and all my collaborators\u201d. She also, with emotion, thanked her family, her parents, husband, children and in-laws, \u201cwho are the ones who truly make it possible to reconcile family and science\u201d.<\/p>\n
Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering, Applied Mechanics and Construction and researcher in the Applied Geotechnologies group of Cintecx, Research Center in Technologies, Energy and Industrial Processes of the University of Vigo, Riveiro received the Agust\u00edn de Betancourt y Molina Award for her contribution in the field of health monitoring of civil engineering structures that have given rise to relevant scientific contributions and also to an important technology transfer through large-scale contracts with companies, and seven patents, three of them licensed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main milestones of my scientific career are related to the resilience of infrastructures, in particular with land transport infrastructures\u201d, explained the researcher in her speech, highlighting the \u201cessential\u201d nature of this research to contribute to achieving sustainable development. \u201cIt is being demonstrated that the effects of climate change are accelerating these processes of degradation of infrastructures. Extreme events are becoming more and more frequent, as we have recently seen in our country, which considerably increases the risks of a natural nature\u201d, remarked Riveiro.<\/p>\n
The Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Committee also valued the fact that this important work carried out by Riveiro has already been recognized with important distinctions, including the Matilde Ucelay National Youth Research Award, in its 2022 edition, awarded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, or the Juan L\u00f3pez de Pe\u00f1alver Medal awarded by the RAI in 2017 \u201cfor his contributions to the application of geomantic techniques to the structural dimensional monitoring of civil engineering and construction structures, as well as the application of 3D modeling in smart cities\u201d.<\/p>\n
The decision to grant him this award was adopted unanimously by all the academics who participated in the RAI Awards Committee meeting, held last October
\nAt the same event, the Juan L\u00f3pez de Pe\u00f1alver Award was also presented, which also recognizes the best young researchers, \u2018ex aequo\u2019 to Rub\u00e9n Tolosa, from the Escola Polit\u00e9cnica Superior of the Universidad Aut\u00f3noma de Madrid, and Natalia D\u00edaz, from the Escola T\u00e9cnica Superior de Informatica y de Telecommunications Engineering of the Universidad de Granada. Likewise, the engineers Sergi Abadal Caball\u00e9, Raquel Lebrero Fern\u00e1ndez and M\u00aa Mirian Velay Lizancos were awarded second place medals for the Agust\u00edn de Betancourt Award for their research work.<\/p>\n