Dr Rob Summers

Head of Evaluation

Rob joined TASO in October 2022 and became Head of Evaluation in October 2025.

As Head of Evaluation, he is responsible for coordinating and monitoring the delivery of TASO’s suite of research and evaluation projects, including randomised controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experimental studies, and theory-based evaluations. He oversees TASO’s programme of evaluation support for the higher education sector, developing tailored training plans, guidance materials, practical tools, and in-person and online training and advisory services. He also contributes to projects focused on knowledge mobilisation and evidence synthesis, such as updates to TASO’s online evidence toolkit and developing the Higher Education Evaluation Library (HEEL).

Rob also uses his data analysis skills to provide insights into publicly available datasets to inform TASO’s work. Rob is also responsible for the line management of two officers.

Before joining TASO Rob worked in the student outreach team at Aston University where he managed a randomised controlled trial of two post-16 outreach programmes as part of the TASO Multi-intervention, Outreach and Mentoring (MIOM) project.

Rob holds a PhD in Visual Perception from the University of Derby. In his recent academic work at Aston University, he has used psychophysical methods to investigate speech perception and analytical methods to investigate the relationship between student engagement, measures of disadvantage, and academic success.