meet the committee

ADRIAN FEENEY

CEO

Adrian started his career at General Motors Holden in 1976 in the Future Model Engineering Department. Having a variety of roles including Test Engineer, Supervising Engineer, Proving Ground Manager, Engineering Program Manager and finally, Managing Engineer, Adrian took early retirement in 2013.

From 2001 to today he has been involved in the organisation of the reputable Formula SAE event.

During the period between 2014-2016, he was the President of SAE-A, and again from 2017 to the present. Additionally, in 2017 he took on the role of Honorary CEO.

PROFESSOR MOHAMMAD FARD (PhD, PE)

CHAIRMAN

Mohammad Fard is a professor of Automotive Engineering and Intelligent Systems at RMIT University. He leads a research team investigating advanced technology, including sound pattern recognition and sound source localisation using artificial intelligence. This research has been applied to vehicle health monitoring and auditory perception for autonomous and smart vehicles. His team has utilised human bio-signals and artificial intelligence to create driver monitoring systems. Mohammad is also leading an industry project to develop an advanced crash simulation platform for Formula One racing track safety.

Mohammad received his PhD from the Laboratory of Intelligent Control Systems, Tohoku University, Japan, in 2003. He worked at the Nissan Technical Centre on vehicle body design as a lead engineer for six years. His contributions at Nissan resulted in multiple innovations for the company in vehicle body design. With the international industry and academic experience, Mohammad leads a successful research team at RMIT University.

PROFESSOR KYOUNGDOUG MIN

Prof. Kyoungdoug Min recevied his Ph.D. from MIT in 1994. He has worked at the central research center of Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany for two years. He joined the faculty of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University in 1997 and he is a full professor. His research area is internal combustion engines, fuel cell system, thermal management of xEV.

He has been a congress board member of FISITA since 2015, and was a chairman of the Science and Technical Committee of FISITA from 2014 to 2016. Now he is an executive board member of FISITA.

Professor Min worked as a technical advisor to Hyundai-Kefico in 2013 and Hyundai Motor Company in 2016. He is a member of National Academy of Engineering of Korea and SAE fellow.

PROFESSOR DR THILO ROTH

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thilo Röth, has been a professor at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in the Department of Aerospace Engineering since January 2001 and has headed the Automotive Technology Laboratory (ATL) since 2007. He is a member of the European Center of Mobility (ECSM) at FH Aachen, chairman of the board of CAR e.V. (euregional cluster based in Aachen) as well as shareholder-managing director of ACA-Invest GmbH.

For more than 20 years, his fields of activity have been located between science and entrepreneurship. In addition to a large number of research projects in lightweight vehicle construction, Professor Röth has been researching the mobility of the future for over ten years.

In addition to the project SkyCab, his projects include "ShareEuregio" (cross-border car sharing with electric vehicles and eBikes) and the Humanhybrid (the pedelec car).

PROFESSOR HARRY WATSON

Harry Watson joined SAE-A in 1971 and became a Fellow of the Society when the grade was first created. He has held many positions in the society including President or Vice-President 2002 to 2013. Harry was the program manager for the only southern hemisphere FISITA Congress in 1984 and has represented SAE-A at FISITA for several decades at Council and on the Technical and Education Committees.

He was a founding member of APAC in 1981 and have been chair of the organising committee for two APAC meetings here.

Harry was HoD of Mechanical Engineering 1996 - 2000 at Melbourne University with speciality in multiple areas of transport energy and environmental impact, retiring from teaching in 2015.

Harry has been awarded SAE-A's Rodda and the 2010 FISITA medal.

JOHANNES PETER BAUER

Johannes Peter Bauer is Safety Director at ACEA the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. He has more than 25 years of working experience in automotive industry as employee of BMW Group with many years in senior management positions. Starting in power train development followed by some years in Formula One where he led the predevelopment for many years he worked as a senior project manager for Plugin Hybrid Vehicles. Followed by 3 years as senior innovation manager he moved to the whole vehicle development at BMW AG where he was head of whole vehicle type approval world-wide for all brands and models of BMW Group responsible to achieve whole vehicle type approval certificates in more than 180 markets all over the world (including all system approvals for safety and emissions) as well as representing BMW in international high level meetings with authorities in Europe and Asia as well as in various working groups of VDA and ACEA. On 1st of October 2019 he moved to Brussels working as Safety Director at ACEA seconded by BMW Group. His responsibilities are reaching from General Safety Regulation and Euro NCAP over Accidentology to safety in ADAS and autonomous driving. He is a diploma engineer in vehicle technology at Munich Applied Science University.

PROFESSOR MAJID SARVI

Professor Sarvi is the chair in transport engineering and the director of Transport Technology program at the University of Melbourne. He is the founder and director of the Australian Integrated Multimodal EcoSystem (AIMES). AIMES is a world first; a grid mapped with smart sensors to test emerging, multimodal connected large-scale transport technologies in a complex urban environment. Through AIMES,

He has consulted on numerous international projects including: leading the first fully automated highway between Tokyo and Nagoya as Chief ITS Engineer; the first full scale probe-intelligent vehicle for traffic state estimation in Japan and the optimization of the ferry network in Hong Kong.

Prof Sarvi has more than 25 years of professional, academic and research experience in the areas of intelligent transport systems. His research is multidisciplinary with an international outlook applying theory to combat real-world challenges. His expertise covers a range of topics, including: Artificial Intelligence in Transport, connected and automated multimodal transport systems and cooperative ITS.

GREG SHOEMARK

Self-described as “the only non-engineer on the board of SAE-A”, Greg Shoemark has been working with engineers for more than 30 years in his role as a professional communicator.

When he joined SAE-A, he was running RACV’s Federal road funding campaign and staged the main national launch of NCAP (now ANCAP).

Engineers who have been central to his professional life include traffic and safety engineers (RACV), vehicle design and manufacturing engineers (Toyota) and industrial engineers (BlueScope Steel).

As primarily a strategic communicator across diverse subject areas, Greg is committed to ensuring that the world at large understands the value of professional engineers to every aspect of modern life.

LUKE CALLAWAY

Luke Callaway joined the SAE-A Board in 2021 and oversees the events and training portfolios.

Luke has worked with vehicles his entire career, holding the position of Executive Manager – Engineering at Hendrickson Asia Pacific where he is responsible for the design, development and integration of innovative suspension systems for both the heavy-duty truck and heavy-duty trailer markets. In addition to his experience in the road transport sector, Luke has also spent time working in top tier motorsport having been involved in both IndyCar and WEC endurance racing while working in the UK developing driver in loop vehicle simulators.

Luke has been recognised as a distinguished member of the ARTSA Institute, a think tank to the road transport industry and currently holds an executive committee position there.

PAUL NATION

Paul Nation currently works within the Australian Department of Defence as a lead test and evaluation engineer providing internal consultancy advice to automotive projects and activities.

He previously worked within a wide range of engineering and technical fields before this role, including maintenance engineering, asset management, system evaluation, logistics, reliability engineering, and failure forensic analysis.

Paul holds qualifications in automotive and reliability engineering and test and evaluation. He interest in autonomous systems stems from his military career and includes platooning, unmanned land domain systems, remote sensing and monitoring, human factors and machine interfaces, and swarm intelligence.

DR GARY WHITE

Gary White is a Chartered Professional Engineer with postgraduate qualifications in engineering and business administration, and is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Gary has has more than 35 years of experience and has played a key part in establishing four Australian cooperative research centres, engaging and supporting participants in R&D and commercialisation programs, with a value of more than $240 million in public-private R&D funding and collaborating with many Australian and international companies. As research director for AutoCRC and Automotive Australia 2020 CRC, he was responsible for delivery of a portfolio of “industry-led” automotive, software, education and commercialisation projects.

Through his work on academic programs in the CRC’s and recently with the Federal Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, Gary has engaged with many of Australia’s universities and leading research teams, overseeing the scholarship funding of more than 120 post-graduate researchers across the country, working closely with academic leadership, building lasting relationships and achieving significant outcomes. Gary is currently Chair, Swinburne Mechanical Engineering, AMT & MPE Course Advisory Committee.

Gary has held various management roles in GM-Holden, Kenworth Trucks, Scalzo Automotive Research, AutoCRC and Excellerate Australia. Recently, Gary has extended his work in electrification of transport, sustainable energy technology and power generation architecture. With a passion for manufacturing in Australia, Gary now provides consulting services to industry, government and academia.

SAM DAVIS

Sam Davis has a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Swinburne University, commencing engineering career at the State Electricity Commission of Victoria.This was followed by six years at General Motors Holden’s, starting in Experimental Engineering then to Holden’s Engine Company as Senior Reliability Engineer. In 1996, he joined Holden Special Vehicles as Senior Powertrain Development Engineer, leading to vehicle engineering development management positions at HSV. After 11 years at HSV, in April 2007, he joined the Victorian Centre for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, as a Program Manager. In 2013 he returned to the automotive industry, joining Ford as the Vehicle Functional Group Team Leader for PCCN (Powertrain, Controls, Calibration and NVH). In 2017 he moved to a new position as Senior Research Engineer at Ford, working with Australian Universities on Research Projects, and then to the Chassis Group as the VFG Team Leader for Brake Quality.In March 2020 Sam joined the Safety Department at the FIA (Federation Internationale de L’Automobile) as a Research Business Consultant to manage the FIA’s Australian interests, including new race car safety related projects with Australian Universities, and is currently managing 10 projects. These projects cover topics as diverse as race track barrier improvements, frangible carbon fibre wings, and a study into race driver extrication from a crashed race car.

PROFESSOR BERNARD ROLFE

Bernard Rolfe is a Professor (Advanced Manufacturing) in the School of Engineering at Deakin University. He is the Director of 3DEC (Deakin Digital Design and Engineering Centre). He was the Associate Head of School (Research) from 2014-2018, and during his leadership the School tripled its quality journal outputs, and doubled income and PhD numbers.

He is the chair of the Academic Advisory Board for the International Federation of Automotive Engineering Societies. Bernard's current research focus is the design and manufacture of light weight structures. Bernard has received four Vice Chancellor awards and has been part of over fifteen successful nationally competitive large research grants, totalling over AUD $24 million in awarded funds. He has published over 170 refereed articles.

DAVID YOUNG

David Young is an engineer with over 15 years’ experience in the areas of vehicle safety and design and road safety. His career in automotive engineering was kick started in 2006 when he undertook research to complete a PhD examining vehicle crashworthiness, which was completed through Monash University. Since the completion of that research his career has included time working in industry, research and the public sector.

Over the past 3 years David has been working as a member of the Transport Accident commissions Road Safety team. During this time his work has focussed on a range of projects and funding activities with many of these covering the area of advanced vehicle safety technologies and Connected and Automated Vehicle technologies. Davids' current role is as the Manager of Road Safety Behaviour, Innovation and Technology at the TAC.