Current Duties

John Phillips is a member of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences and mainly lectures statistics and mathematics courses to students in the Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics.

He is the coordinator for fourth year students studying Actuarial Science and is the chairman of the department's Student-Staff Committee. He is also Deputy Head of Department and regularly undertakes recruitment activities in Malaysia. John is also involved in publicity and web design for the School and away from academic life he does some broadcasting work for BBC Scotland.

You can email John at J.Phillips@hw.ac.uk or visit him in room CM S06 in the Colin Maclaurin Building.

Biography

After completing a Mathematics degree at Edinburgh University and obtaining a first class honours, John undertook a teacher training course and worked for a few years as a school-teacher. He was appointed as a Lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics at the Scottish College of Textiles in 1986 where he had a variety of responsibilities over the years. Following the institution’s merger with Heriot-Watt University, he moved to Riccarton in 2003 and since then has been teaching many statistics and probability courses. He is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. As well as having a career in academia, he is also a professional broadcaster occasionally working freelance with the BBC. This experience has helped him in the publicity and marketing activities for the School which he has been actively involved in since he arrived here. John is involved in International Recruitment and to this end has visited Malaysia several times.

Teaching 2018/2019

F79PS: Statistics for Social Science
F78QT: Quantitative Techniques 1
F78PB: Probability and Statistics B
F77PD: Professional Development Planning

Students can find details about these courses on Vision.