Neuroscientist Professor Phil Newton is the Associate Dean for Education in the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences at Swansea University. Phil teaches Neuroscience across a variety of programmes in the School. He also teaches evidence-based education as part of the School's online MSc in Medical Education. Phil has also taught students and staff worldwide about plagiarism and other forms of other academic misconduct.

Phil came to Swansea in 2009 from the University of California, having completed a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds and a B.Sc in Biology at Aberystwyth University. He also holds an MSc in Medical Education from Cardiff University (2012). He is famously known for his work around evidence-based education and advocates that he wants to apply scientific methods to the study of issues in education. Phil describes himself as a pragmatic nerd. He says "there are lots of effective, evidence-based ways to teach, to learn, to study. We don't really use them. It would help us all if we did. Equally, there are lots of really ineffective ways to teach and to study. They are remarkably popular. It would help us all a lot if we put them in the bin." There are so many themes we could unpick with Phil, but for today we will concentrate on “how we learn”. Hopefully, he will join us in the future to address some of the other hot topics! Read The Case for Pragmatic Evidence-Based Higher Education: A Useful Way Forward? and follow along on YouTube to make your own mind up!