Dr Rob Summers

Senior Research Manager

Rob joined TASO in October 2022.

As Senior Research Manager, Rob is responsible for commissioning and managing research projects (including providing quality assurance and synthesis reports of project outputs) that advance the sector’s knowledge of what works to support student outcomes. He also oversees the development of resources – such as the post-entry Mapping Outcomes and Activities Tool (MOAT) and the Data Infrastructure Guide – which help institutions improve how they use data to evaluate their interventions.

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.