Prior to becoming dean, he spent two years as interim dean, two years as executive associate dean and eight years as head of the Department of Statistics.
Newton is the author of numerous research articles and two books in the areas of time series analysis, computational statistics and technology-mediated instruction. Elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1995, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013, he has served as the Texas A\&M member of the board of the Giant Magellan Telescope Project. He has also served as the editor of "The Stata Journal" since its inception in 2000.
A native of Syracuse, N.Y., Newton holds a doctorate in statistical sciences and a master of science in statistics from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Niagara University.