Subject: Recommendation letter for Ozgur Balsoy Resent-Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:57:36 -0500 Resent-From: Geoffrey Fox Resent-To: p_gcf@npac.syr.edu Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 21:18:53 +0200 (EET) From: Kivanc Dincer To: gcf@npac.syr.edu CC: Kivanc Dincer , kdincer@tubitak.gov.tr Dear Professor Fox, Please find the reference letter for Ozgur Balsoy attached. If you also need a hard-copy, I can fax or post it on Monday or Tuesday. I congratulate your new job in Florida State. I wish you a happier and more successful life there. I have left the university a few months ago. I now work for a semi-private research institution, conducting military projects. I continue my academic career as a part-time instructor at Middle East Technical University. Yours sincerely, -Kivanc Dincer ------------ CUT HERE ------------------------------------------- March 18, 2000 Computer Science Department Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32306-4530 To Whom It May Concern: I am pleased to write this letter of recommendation for Mr. Ozgur Balsoy whom you are considering for the Ph.D. program in Computer Science at your department. I first met Ozgur in early 1995 when he was studying English as a Second Language at Cornell University. He had come to the US long before the beginning of Fall semester so that he could reserve some time for improving his English speaking skills and make his applications for Master's personally. He was thinking professionally. Ozgur was later accepted to the Master's program in Computer Science at Syracuse University. He has attracted my attention as a young and talented individual with exceptional programming/analytical skills. He was the creator of the first professional web site about Turkey at that time. His site remained to be among the most popular and high quality sites since then. Ozgur has a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from Ege University ( http://bornova.ege.edu.tr/~ceweb/), that is one of the finest colleges of Turkey in Engineering Education. His department is known as having strong ties with the industry. I had a chance to work with Ozgur more closely in the summer months of 1999. When I was the (acting) chair of the Department of Computer Engineering at Baskent University, I invited Ozgur to spend the summer at Baskent University (http://www.baskent.edu.tr/) and to participate in a research and development project funded by the Scientific and Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK, http://www.tubitak.gov.tr), a prestigious research organization similar to the National Science Foundation in the US. Ozgur has made major contributions to our project during his two-month stay in Turkey. He has quickly analyzed our problems and developed smart solutions to some of them. He has continued to interact with our group remotely even after he returned back to US. Besides the project work, he conducted two other voluntary pieces of work in the department. He has given a series of technical seminars about recent trends in Web technologies. He is very competent in these technologies thanks to his working at well-known Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, lead by Professor Geoffrey Fox. Ozgur also co-supervised a few computer undergraduates working in the development of an Internet-accessible student records automation system using Microsoft technologies. He has impressed me with his strong commitment to his work assignments and his carefully observing the given deadlines. He always take his job seriously. He is an extremely hard working and technically competent person. His problem solving approach and computer programming skills are very solid. Furthermore, he is a very mature, nice, social, and honest person and it is really a pleasure to work with him. I strongly support his application to your program. Please feel free to contact me at (+90) 532-623-3324 (mobile) or via e-mail if you have any further questions. Sincerely, Kivanc Dincer, Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist TUBITAK-UEKAE Project Office (Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey) (National Cryptography and Electronics Research Institute) Kavaklidere 06100 Ankara TURKEY kdincer@tubitak.gov.tr or kdincer@ceng.metu.edu.tr http://www.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~kdincer/