Meet the NMA Staff – National Motorsport Academy

NMA Engineering School Staff

Meet The Tutor Team

Our team of dedicated motorsport engineering tutors support our students in every way possible to achieve their qualification in motorsport engineering. You will be assigned a subject expert tutor for each module of your course. The tutors can be contacted via email, phone or Skype as often as you need. Monday to Friday 9.00am – 5.00pm British Time.

Dr. Kieran Reeves

Director of Motorsport

Kieran has over 17 years’ experience in Higher Education in lecturing, senior management and external examiner roles. During this time, he has successfully written and validated numerous Automotive and Motorsport degrees, including some of the first ever Foundation Degree qualifications in the UK.

Kieran holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Lancaster University with a focus on energy management of hybrid race vehicles. His research has enabled him to present across the UK, Europe and America to peers, Tier 1 suppliers and a variety of OEM’s.

Prior to and alongside his academic profession, Kieran has over 20 years’ experience in both the Motorsport and Automotive Industry, competing at Chief Engineer level in several forms of Motorsport, both at and away from the race circuit. Having originally built long distance rally vehicles included in the Manchester to Bombay and Panama to Alaska competitions, he moved on to work in single seater, open-wheel race formulae. Having held several consultancy roles for race teams, including GT Porsche, he has contributed to the development of a race winning engine package, and provided engine research and development paths to Formula Student teams.

Currently, alongside his Director and Teaching duties, he is also the Team Manager and Chief Engineer to the NMA’s race team.

Wayne Gater

Deputy Director of Motorsport

Wayne began his career as an electrical wiring harness engineer in the Aerospace industry where he studied Electrical Electronic Engineering and Aerodynamics. Following a career change into automotive as a Vehicle Technician, he secured a College Lecturer position with responsibility for the delivery…

of Mathematics, Science and Electronics, before progressing eighteen months later to take up a Higher Education Teaching post his specialist subjects being Aerodynamics, Engine Technology, Design & Manufacture and Engineering Validation Techniques. He was promoted to the role of Programme Leader for all Automotive Higher Education Programmes before leaving to work for the NMA.

Wayne has had a life long interest in the dynamics of motion, initially as a young sailor mastering the nautical waves of solo sailing in his school years through to the theory of flight upon entering his aeronautical career. This background of practical knowledge was complemented by Wayne’s transition into the Automotive/ Motorsport industry which ultimately resulted in a teaching role. Aside teaching future Engineers, Wayne spent a number of years researching and implementing Aerodynamic and Fluid dynamic design for external and internal performance gains on Automotive and Motorsport applications. Becoming a qualified teacher, attending a plethora of Motorsport and Automotive training events and also achieving a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Lancaster University. His Master’s Thesis was on the design and control of Active Aerodynamic Systems for Sports Cars.

Nascar, Stadium Trucks and GT racing are Wayne’s favourite forms of mainstream motor sport. He also has a fondness for other Motorsport disciplines such as Drift, Time Trial and Hill climb. Being a typical petrol head Wayne has a very eclectic taste in cars and will always happily chat to anyone about his passion. He’s an avid Porsche and Nissan fan, especially the Z cars, having happily owned a number of models including a 370Z Nismo for a number of years. He loves old Volvos, and proudly talks about his galactic miles S60R and since having children has found a new fondness for 4 seater coupes, namely the Mustang GT due to it being available in right hand drive.

Roger Grimshaw

Motorsport Tutor

Rogers appetite for teaching emerged during his successful business career, where much of his time in the workplace was spent training and mentoring junior sales and engineering personnel and other colleagues. Able to effectively combine great subject knowledge and superb communication skills and with…

…a patient persona, he has a talent for explaining things, however complex.

For Roger, this is fundamental to the role and it underpins what he loves most about education. Rogers specialist areas within the NMA course delivery include Mathematics, Motorsport Technology Fundamentals and the essential Academic and Professional Practices that feature through undergraduate to postgraduate level and beyond.

Having also been a reasonable amateur race driver, he has the ability to bridge the gap between driving and engineering race cars, and to help motorsport engineering students and racing enthusiasts to recognise and understand the links between the academic and practical racing work.

Tim Mullis

Motorsport Tutor

Tim has worked in motorsport for over 20 years since graduating with a Mechanical Engineering degree. During that time, he has experienced cars and drivers ranging from karts to F1 and has worked for teams, constructors and suppliers. Tim then gained his teaching qualification and became a university lecturer…

…involved in the teaching and development of motorsport degree courses, before joining NMA.

Tim hopes to pass on skills and lessons learnt from the motorsport industry to NMA students. With a particular interest in the areas of data acquisition, vehicle dynamics, strategy and simulation, Tim continues to combine tutor work at the NMA with participation as a data and strategy engineer in the European Le Mans Series, mostly with LMP3 cars ensuring course content is kept up to date and relevant to the industry.

He particularly likes prototype/endurance racing, a type of racing that requires the whole team to play an important part to solve the challenges imposed by the longer, multi-driver races.

Wayne Hargreaves

Motorsport Tutor

Wayne has worked in education for over 17 years, teaching both motor vehicle and motorsport qualifications. He specialises in Engine Design & development, CFD, Data Logging and most recently Hybrid Technologies, with extensive experience of software packages such as GT Suite, StarCCM+, Motec and AIM…

…He has also been involved in the curriculum design of Motorsport and Automotive programmes and carried out external examiner roles, graduating with a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Having a healthy interest in Moto GP and F1, Wayne has been involved with various racing teams, most notably Formula Renault, running a team with students and competing in the BARC series championship.

With a passion for motorcycles and restoring classic 2 stoke racing machines, he spends most of his spare time running a motocross team with two youth riders, competing in the NLWMCC Championship and wild card entries in National events.

Ed Sarling

Motorsport Tutor

Edward has been working on cars and motorbikes since childhood. After running a successful small business for 20 years, and mentoring apprentices through college in that time, he decided to move towards teaching as a full-time career.

Having built and developed several high performance Japanese cars for both track and road use his passion has always been with the Asian car market. His passion for motoring first took him to Japan in 2011, and he has been studying the Japanese language, both reading and writing, ever since. Most recently he has been preparing, maintaining and running exotic Supercars and Ariel Atoms for race, test and track days. Ed is also a familiar face within the NMA race team.

He has particular interests in ECU mapping, for which he completed a specialist course in 2015, and setting up suspension, for which he fancies himself as a bit of a Niki Lauda! Already holding an Honours Degree in Motorsport Engineering, Ed is currently working towards his Masters in Advanced Motorsport Engineering, he understands first-hand how remote learning differs from being in a classroom.

Meet The Student Services Team

We also have a dedicated Student Support and Administration Team to help deal with any other queries such as payments, student loans advice and anything else you may need a helping hand with.
Available to contact anytime, Monday to Friday 9.00am – 5.00pm British Time.