Robert J. Woodward was selected to receive the Chateaubriand Fellowship of the Office of Science and Technology of the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a graduate research fellow of the National Science Foundation.
This STEM fellowship will allow Robert to conduct research for one year at the University of Montpellier in France in collaboration with Christian Bessiere, a research director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Ninety Chateaubriand Fellowship applications were received and Woodward’s ranked in the top 10. NSF's Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide program also granted Woodward an award, which will support his travel to France. Woodward will have the opportunity to acquire a dual doctoral degree from UNL and the University of Montpellier. One of the goals of the fellowship is to encourage the two teams, the Constraint Systems Laboratory at UNL and Bessier's group, and the two universities, UNL and Montpellier, to start a sustainable scientific collaboration.
A native of Rochester, Minn., Woodward graduated with high distinction with a bachelor of science degree in computer science and mathematics from UNL in May 2010. He was admitted to the UNL Ph.D. program in computer science in the same month and received his master of science degree in computer science in December 2011. He was a research intern at the University College Cork in Ireland during summer 2010 and 2012. In addition, Woodward was a Goldwater Fellow (2008-10) and the recipient of numerous departmental awards at UNL.