Jose Rodriguez-Ibabe has had an admiration for engineering since his childhood in Renteria and San Sebastian, Spain. Under the guidance of his father and an encouraging family friend, Rodriguez-Ibabe was accepted into university and became the first in his family to achieve higher education. His time in school led him from mechanical engineering to fracture mechanics and metallurgy. Rodriguez-Ibabe was on a path of ceaseless research and discovery as he went from being a PhD student to a researcher at the CEIT Research Institute. From then on, he and his team worked tirelessly to research fracture mechanics and the fatigue and brittle properties of steels. Their work brought them success and recognition at conferences worldwide, and they became the recipients of many prestigious awards, such as the Vanadium Award from the Institute of Materials and the Meritorious Award from the Iron and Steel Institute. He is also the author of the book Thin Slab Direct Rolling of Microalloyed Steels. Today, Rodriguez-Ibabe continues to research and discover new ways of improving industry, primarily through his work identifying heterogeneities in the microstructure of steel during hot rolling. Learn more about his extraordinary career and the message he has for new engineers in his oral history.