NMITE Bolsters Its Academic Team With New Hires

The New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (@nmite_ac) has confirmed the appointment of two new academic staff members – Assistant Professor Aris Quintana-Nedelcos and Assistant Professor Tim Belden. They join ahead of the institution’s first cohort intake in September 2021.  

Aris Quintana-Nedelcos joins the Academic Team as Assistant Professor – Heat Flow & Energy. He has over 15 years’ experience in engineering, physics and maths higher education, having worked in Cuba, Mexico, Slovakia, Turkey and most recently the UK. His passion for challenge-based learning is strongly in keeping with NMITE’s learning-by-doing approach and was of huge appeal to the team.  

Tim Belden joins the Academic Team as Assistant Professor – Digital Engineering, and his initial focus will be on teaching programming in the MEng. Tim has been working as a researcher and consultant in heritage buildings and has a special interest in applications of computer vision and mechatronics applied to surveying, modelling and remote sensing.  Tim has teaching experience in colleges in Norfolk and Suffolk and is in the process of writing his PhD on how metal fasteners in timber framed buildings perform in fires. 

NMITE’s Chief Academic Officer Professor Beverley Gibbs said of the new hires: 

“We are delighted to welcome Tim and Aris to the NMITE academic team. They expand our integrated engineering teaching remit with more like-minded educators who share the NMITE vision. Tim will begin his contribution through the teaching of programming – arguably the most powerful way engineers have of interacting with machinery. Aris will be helping NMITE’s developing engineers understand how to transfer power through the design and deployment of hydraulic and pneumatic technologies. As such both of our new colleagues will be helping our learners understand engineering concepts, skills and tools, and to integrate them to solve real-world challenges.”  

Gibbs continues “Tim has been both teacher and an engineering practitioner and is able to look forward to digital skills as well as backwards to heritage structures. We are excited for him to fuse those perspectives together in ways that will interest students and bring the breadth of what engineering can be to life.”  

“Aris is a global educator and passionate about challenge-based learning as a means to inspire, stretch and develop the next generation of engineers, and he will be bringing this experience to bear in our MEng in Integrated Engineering.”