A computer science and mathematics student has been awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship that will provide financial assistance as he pursues his doctorate at UNL.

Daniel Geschwender earned a Graduate Research Fellowship from NSF for 2014-2017. The award pays the student a yearly stipend and provides international research and professional development opportunities.

Geschwender will receive his bachelor of science from UNL in May and has decided to continue his education here.

“I looked at other schools and chose to stay at UNL partially out of convenience and location but primarily because of my connection to the Constraint Systems Laboratory,” he said. “I’ve been happy with the work we have done and would like to continue my research in that lab.”

Geschwender is in the Honors Program and has earned additional accolades as an undergrad, including being named a Goldwater Scholar, and the publication of three research papers. Geschwender completed his UCARE research on constraints, specifically automated algorithm selection for solving constraint satisfaction problems. He plans to continue this research as a graduate student in UNL’s Constraint Systems Laboratory.

“There are countless real-world problems, such as scheduling and resource allocation, that require optimal arrangement of the objects involved,” Geschwender said, explaining the impact of his research. “Constraint Processing is a way for computers to manipulate and solve these problems. My work focuses on choosing the best algorithm to solve a given constraint problem.”

Receiving the fellowship will allow Geschwender to focus on his research and studies as he works toward his doctorate. He is grateful to his mentor, Berthe Choueiry, for encouraging him to apply for the fellowship.

“It is a great feeling to have my research recognized and to know I’ll have good funding for the next three years,” he said.

The NSF fellowship pays a stipend of $32,000 annually, as well as a $12,000 cost of-education allowance to the institution the student chooses to attend. More than 14,000 applications were received for the 2014 competition, but only 2,000 fellowships were awarded.