Onward and Upward

FIU’s Applied Research Center takes special pride in the successes of our staff and students, even if that means a departure from our family.

Recently, Steven Portal, ARC Environmental Research Engineer, received a generous offer from the Boeing Company, based in Seattle, WA. Portal will join Boeing as an Airplane Structural Analyst, where he will be responsible for testing the structural integrity of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, a new aircraft still in development.

For the past two years, Portal was employed as an Undergraduate Research Assistant working under Georgio Tachiev and Galia Yaari. His research projects included  environmental remediation, nuclear waste management, and ultrafiltration for the Department of Energy. Within these projects, Portal received the opportunity to protégé as a project manager, while developing his technical writing skills and presentation techniques. Also during his time at ARC, he was accepted into an internship program with the Department of Defense where he did Computational Fluid Dynamics research for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Air Vehicle Directorate (AFRL/VA.)

Before accepting the offer from Boeing, Portal also interviewed with major companies including: Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney, and Northrop Grumman.

 “During the interviews I was acknowledged repeatedly on the work and communication skills I have developed here at ARC,” commented Portal, “and was told how useful that is for a new college graduate entering into the corporate world.”

According to Portal, “receiving this offer from a company of [Boeing’s] magnitude, I must thank ARC for providing the opportunity for me to develop my skills but the biggest thank you has to go to Georgio [Tachiev] and Galia [Yaari]. Under their supervision I have gained invaluable knowledge complementing my degree.”

And it wasn’t only Portal who showed excitement about this new opportunity, Georgio Tachiev stated:

Steve’s success has shown that ARC can generate world class engineers. It is also a great success for the DOE program funding the research on High Level Waste Processing. But most of all, we would like to acknowledge Steve’s work ethics, loyalty to teamwork, persistence and engineering creativity. We wish him a great career at Boeing as we are looking forward Steve becoming our ambassador for a joint program between Boeing and ARC.

Portal recently graduated from FIU’s College of Engineering with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering.