On December 12, 2014, Gabriel Fernández Ortiz, defended his thesis titled El sistema del embudo, en el cual el extremo pequeño le toca a él: la transformación tecnológica de la industria azucarera y el proteccionismo estadounidense durante el surgimiento de los colonos en Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1898-1928, a translation from English into Spanish of The Funnel System in which his is The Little End: The Technological Transformation of the Sugar Industry and American Protectionism in the Emergence of the Colonos in Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1898-1928 de José Solá.
The Thesis Committee, formed by Alejandro Álvarez Nieves, Ph.D., Manuel Rodríguez, Ph.D., and thesis director Yvette Torres, M.A., awarded his thesis the grade bueno.