Research Engineering
More than just technology services
Statewide Impact for Science
More than just technology services, our engineering team is focused on supporting science education and research applications. With our academic partners throughout Nevada and beyond, we bring unique subject-matter expertise into Team Science projects that transform student skills development and research outputs for society.
- Collaborate with key Nevada research projects including mountain climate and wildland fire science, regional natural resource innovation partnerships, and cybersecurity education and training.
- Support K-20 engagement programs with unified technology solutions, especially in the areas of secure network connectivity and training opportunities.
- Lead in creating information technology (IT) strategy for research data network and computing resources across Nevada’s rural geographies, research institutions, and community colleges.
- Develop Nevada’s cyberInfrastructure workforce by providing innovative IT training for students and community-building for institutional-scale professional teams.
Mission
SCS Research Engineering elevates Nevada’s academic technological capabilities to enable, empower, and advance research and science-driven education.
Major Initiatives
Statewide Team Building: We create communities of practice for research IT, producing innovative solutions and success strategies for Nevada’s higher education institutions.
Regional and National Networks: Leveraging the power of our NevadaNet state network, we forge a future of digital connectivity for open science across vast landscapes and political boundaries.
Scalable Solutions: Our team develops sustainable, scalable technology services for students and researchers, unlocking research flexibility and digital innovation.
Capacity-growing Grants: We operate as a leader and collaborator in Team Science and Cyberinfrastructure projects, leveraging external funding to grow Nevada’s science education and community service capabilities.
Student Training and Workforce Development: We constantly evolve effective student training and workforce development to create pipelines of exceptional candidates in the IT Engineering field.
Our Current Projects
NV-DICE Strategic Planning
The Nevada Vision for a co-Developed Impactful Cyberinfrastructure Ecosystem (NV-DICE) project is a CI collaborative thinktank with institutional leadership across NSHE, UNLV, UNR, and DRI.
NSHE Research DMZ
NevadaNet is now home to a high performance network and security environment for research computing and data projects, cybersecurity training resources, and community science infrastructure.
Wildland Fire Science
The $25 million Nevada NSF-EPSCoR Track-1 Harnessing the Data Revolution for Fire Science project (HDRFS) is a statewide Team Science effort to improve wildland fire science research infrastructure across NSHE.
Wide Area Sensor Networks
Nevada’s geography and history of excellence in earth sciences have made NSHE institutions global leaders in developing and maintaining sensor and data networks in extreme environments.
In the News
Quilt members receive $5M for exciting WildWEST project
NSF award boosts work by Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) to create multi-state team aimed to improve the way we study and understand the environment in the western United States
NSHE to Lead Multi-State Team to Transform Field Science in the West with $5 Million Grant
This funding will help build a stronger workforce in technology for science through the WildWEST project, an innovative initiative aimed at improving the way we study and understand the environment in the western United States.
Latest News from Our NSF-EPSCoR Fire Science Project
See the latest news from the Harnessing the Data Revolution for Fire Science (HDRFS) project. This project will fill knowledge gaps about fire processes and their effects on smoke emission, ecology, and hydrology in the intermountain west.
Meet the Team
Scotty Strachan
Principal Research Engineer
As Principal Research Engineer for the Nevada System of Higher Education, Scotty specializes in strategic planning, management, and end-to-end application of technology to improve and accelerate scientific and research workflow. Scotty’s strategic development plan for Nevada includes improving expertise in data acquisition, networking, research computing, data management, and software infrastructure.
Scotty’s Ph.D. is in Geography and Business Administration from the University of Nevada, Reno. He maintains core science activities in mountain climate and Great Basin ecohydrology, as PI or co-PI of over $33MM in grant-funded projects since 2018.
Garrett Blain-Castelli
Research Engineer
Garrett Blain-Castelli is a full-time Research Engineer at System Computing Services. He earned a master’s degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno. Garrett’s prior experience as a DevOps Engineer has fueled his passion for innovation, with a focus on optimizing systems for reliability and creating repeatable infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code.
Natasha Majewski
LOA – Research Strategy and Engagement
Natasha Majewski works with clients to surface their purpose and strategize their direction through communications and marketing, strategic planning, outreach and events, strategic partnerships, and program development. She has over 15 years of experience working with large organizations like USAID, the State Department, FIFA World Cup, the University of Nevada, Reno, and Burning Man as well as smaller community organizations, businesses, and entrepreneurs. She has a BA in Journalism and Art and a MS in Geography.
Keane Flynn
Field Networks Research Engineer
Keane Flynn is a Field Networks Research Engineer for the Nevada System of Higher Education primarily focusing on efforts related to the NSF-funded WildWEST project. Keane’s work experience has largely been in the environmental field focusing on fisheries and wildlife monitoring in the Western United States. This experience led his interests towards leveraging cutting-edge technology to improve remote environmental monitoring methods for researchers and members of the public. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley and his MS from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Jehren Boehm
Graduate research engineer
Jehren Boehm is a doctoral student from the University, of Nevada, Reno’s Department of Geography. His research is focused on the interactions of land management practices and outdoor recreation in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and developing better methods of science-based environmental observation. Jehren is actively developing low-cost, wide-area network sensor solutions for science and management, including focus on precipitation hydrology and forest health.
Paulane Tulop
Student Employee, Level 2 – Research Engineering
Paulane Tulop is currently pursuing a BS in Computer Science and Engineering while working part-time as a student worker in the Research Engineering Department. She leverages her prior experiences in computer science to contribute to projects that integrate technology with research needs. Driven by a passion for learning, she is eager to explore new ideas, technologies, and tools that enhance innovation and solve real-world challenges.
Eren Ramirez
Student Employee, Level 2 – Research Engineering
Eren is currently pursuing a MS in Computer Science and Engineering while working in the Research Engineering Department. They hope to leverage their previous experience developing applications for widespread use by the instructors and students at the University of Nevada, Reno; combining system administration and application development experience with DevOps practices to deploy resilient and scalable services for researchers and members of the public.
Emeritus Team Member: Wyatt Haley
Student Employee, Level 3 – Research Engineering
Research Engineering’s first (and OG) student engineer, Wyatt Haley graduated from the department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno in Spring 2025. He is professionally employed as a full-stack software engineer in private industry, and we are proud of his work and development during his time at NSHE. During his tenure with the SCS Research Engineering team, Wyatt helped maintain network security, led a CS Senior Projects development team, and learned DevOps for application-layer infrastructure.
