hayden masters

From a town of 2,700 — Pawnee, Illinois — where I spent my nights in the terminal instead of anywhere else.

I'm Hayden Masters. Founder of Nurture Labs LLC, computer science student, IT infrastructure intern, AI researcher, threat intelligence researcher.

In early 2026, I converted every Claude conversation I'd ever had into a structured Obsidian knowledge graph. 1,474 conversations. The graph had one clear center: the Gender category — surrounded by everything else. Data doesn't lie. It just sometimes takes a while to read it.

I build things that carry me in them. That's always been the point.

0 endpoints managed
0 memory nodes in Aida
0 botnet victims taken to zero

Selected Work

Technical Fluency

Infrastructure

FortiGate
UniFi
VMware ESXi
Active Directory
Linux / NixOS
Kubernetes / Talos

Security

Wazuh / SIEM
Burp Suite
OSINT / Threat Intel
Security Onion
Network Security

Development

Python
GitOps / Flux
AI / ML Systems
RTL-SDR / RF

Systems

Home Assistant
Klipper / 3D Printing
Asterisk PBX
RTL-SDR

Background

May 2026 – Present

Network Consultant Intern

LRS · Lincoln, IL

1 of 31 selected from 381 applicants. Enterprise networking and infrastructure consulting.

March 2026 – Present

Founder & Lead Researcher

Nurture Labs LLC

SAM.gov registered (UEI: P8DCFFTG4BX6). Apple Business Manager enrolled. Business banking and branding complete. Pursuing NSF SBIR Phase I — biologically-inspired cognitive architecture, on-premise LLM inference for data sovereignty. UIS Orion Lab (NVIDIA-donated compute) as research base; IP fully retained by Nurture Labs LLC.

January 2026

Threat Intelligence Researcher

Independent / FBI Springfield

Discovered 1,544-victim international cryptojacking botnet. Briefed FBI Springfield. IC3 report #9be194adb360499ca5458c2e5f1e2b0f. Reduced to 0 active workers January 27.

May 2023 – Aug 2025

IT Infrastructure Intern

Pawnee Jr/Sr High School

Solo management of 800+ Windows endpoints. Wireless AP installation, Chromebook fleet management, server operations, network routing.

Jan 2025 – May 2026

AA Computer Science

Lincoln Land Community College

4.0 GPA. Phi Theta Kappa. Star Scholar Award ($7k/year for UIS). LLCC → UIS → UIUC transfer path toward cybersecurity PhD.

Aug 2022 – May 2026

High School Diploma

Pawnee Jr/Sr High School

4.548 weighted GPA. 3rd class rank. 33 ACT. Illinois State Scholar. National Honor Society. College Board National Recognition Program.

Let's build something.

From a town of 2,700 — building things that matter.