CSE junior Daniel J. Geschwender recently won the pretigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program. The goal of this program is to ensure the availability of
qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by providing scholarships to students studying pursuing these degree programs. The prestigious award is given to about 300 undergraduates a year. This scholarship comes with a stipend of up to $7,500/year for educational expenses. Universities can nominate up
to four students a year. Daniel is the second CSE student to receive this award.
What was the process like when applying for the scholarship?
Last year Dr. Choueiry suggested I look into the Goldwater Scholarship. Unfortunately I was slightly too late to apply that year. This year we were ready and began as soon as possible. Overall, the application process wasn't too complicated, but it can take a long
time to get everything just right.
How do you think the UNL CSE Department helped you achieve this?
The Goldwater scholarship is awarded to undergraduate students involved in research. The UNL CSE Department is very good about giving undergraduates opportunities to take part in research. I have been making good use of those opportunities.
Can you tell me about Dr. Choueiry’s role?
Dr. Choueiry has been outstanding in the help and guidance she has provided me in my research. She also gave quite a bit of useful advice during my work on the Goldwater application itself.
What are your career goals?
I am planning on working towards a PhD in Computer Science. I definitely want to do research but I have yet to decide whether I would prefer a university or industrial setting.
How do you think the scholarship will help you to achieve these goals?
The money is great but I think it will be most useful on my resume. It's kind of an easy way to vouch for the quality of my research. Hopefully this will open up more opportunities in the future.
What are your research interests?
My research has been focusing Constraint Processing, a subfield of Artificial Intelligence. Recently I've thrown in a little bit of Machine Learning (another subfield of AI) as well. Artificial Intelligence has always been intriguing to me and incorporates many mathematical concepts I really enjoy using.