1. Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
College of Engineering and Computing
10555 West Flagler Street, EAS 3430, Miami, Florida 33174 ●Tel: 305-348-2569 ● Fax: 305-348-1932 ● www.fiu.edu
Florida International University is an Equal Opportunity/Access Employer and Institution ● TDD via FRS 1-800-955-8771
September 15, 2015
To Whom It May Concern:
I am pleased to write this letter to support Mr. Jorge Cisternas’s application for the Florida-
Georgia Louis Stoke Scholarship. I have known him for two years and very impressed with his
work.
Mr. Cisternas took my Mechatronics course in the spring 2015. He worked very hard for the
projects, quizzes and tests in the curses. He was one of the best students in the class. Mr.
Cisternas was an exceptional student earning 3.80 GPA during his associate’s degree program at
the Miami Dade. He has been able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at FIU while he had multiple medical
problems. Mr. Cisternas set up a study groups with many classmates to give advice to other
MME majors who are underclassman on how to distribute their course loads to graduate quickly
with better GPA.
Mr. Cisternas received an AFRL internship after an internal competition in FIU and spent one
summer at the Eglin AFB. We have received excellent comments about his work at the base.
This experience helped him to find a part-time internship at a local aircraft maintenance shop.
Mr. Cisternas was elected as the E-board member of the newly founded Aerospace Engineering
Club. The club received 6th place worldwide and 2nd place in the nation beating schools such as
LSU, and University of Michigan. They increased the membership of the club over 150%, and
secured their funding to build planes for the following two years. In the spring of 2015, he was
elected as the Student Government Senator to represent the whole Engineering School at the FIU
Senate. In this position, he organized a club fair in which more than 15 engineering clubs
attended and helped introducing the importance of STEM education to the university
community.
Mr. Cisternas is an excellent student. He has my highest recommendation for the Georgia Louis
Stoke Scholarship.
Sincerely
Dr. Ibrahim Tansel
Interim Chair
Professor, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Florida International University
Miami, FL 33146
E-Mail: tanseli@fiu.edu, Cell: 305-333-5180