Nolan Cutler

Undergraduate Researcher @ Oregon State University • HiPCastor Group

Hello, I am a third-year undergraduate computer science student at Oregon State University’s Honors College (OSU). Since January 2025, I have been employed as a computer systems researcher with Professor Renato Figueiredo. Previously, I worked as a farmhand.

My research has been primarily in serverless computing, enabling scientists to compose complex, scientific workflows without the need for computing expertise. Recently, this has led me to research in agentic-AI for science.

I deeply enjoy working on interdisciplinary projects in problem-spaces that have a tangible impact on sustainability and technological democratization. I have been fortunate to have been involved in a number of such collaborations, including wildlife conservation efforts with the University of Osaka and Aomori University in Japan; ecological forecasting with Virginia Tech; smart farming with the agriculture department at OSU; and soon, wildlife monitoring and education accessibility in Western Kenya through an ASU program.

Research

Serverless Workflow Paper

2026

Ashish Tulso Ramrakhiani, Nolan Cutler, Cayelan C. Carey, Austin D. Delany, Izzy Lerman, R. Quinn Thomas, Owen Wickman, Renato J. Figueiredo

double-blind submission to international conference (under review)

A Low-Power IoT Architecture for Environmental Monitoring in Resource-Constrained Areas

2026

Wassapon Watanakeesuntorn, Susumu Date, Nolan Cutler, Renato Figueiredo, Akito Okuyama, Shinji Shimojo

CENTRA 9

GIE: Projects in Human-Centered Design, EPICS in Kenya

May 2026

Global Intensive Experience, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

Selected to participate in ASU's Global Intensive Experience in Western Kenya, focusing on human-centered design and social innovation. I will be working on two interdisciplinary projects: expanding an offline digital library (serving 300+ educational resources in English, Kiswahili, and Kenyan Sign Language) for the Jirani Project and Lance's Deaf Orphans; and developing conservation technology with Maasai Mara communities for wildlife monitoring.

EPICS Library Elephant Conservation

Projects

FaaSr (Serverless Computing Middleware)

FaaSr enables scientists to compose complex, multi-step workflows in serverless environments without computing infrastructure expertise. It simplifies the deployment and orchestration of functions across diverse platforms.

I refactored the runtime of the middleware from R to Python, and designed an RPC mechanism to the backend's user function handling that allowed for language extensibility (we currently support Python, R, and Julia). My architectural changes increased the flexibility of the system, supporting a co-authored submission to [international conference], as well as an abstract at CENTRA 9.

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under awards OAC-2450241 and OAC-2311124.

Backend Docker

Castor32 (RISC-V Single-Cycle Processor)

A 32-bit RISC-V single-cycle processor implemented in Verilog that was adopted into the Fall 2025 ECE572 (Computer Architecture) curriculum at Oregon State University.