Featured Faculty: Dr. William S. Hall
April 2006

William S. Hall (Professor) is the Co-Director of the Laboratory of Comparative and Functional Neuroanatomy as well as Director of the Departmental Honors Program and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Hall received the Ph.D. in 1968 from The University of Chicago, and completed a post-doc in psychometrics at the American College Testing Program, Iowa City, Iowa, in 1970. In 1978 he was one of the first Sloan Fellows in Cognitive Science at Yale University. Dr. Hall is a member of the Advisory Board for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate of NSF, the Post-doctoral Fellowship Committee for NSF and the editorial board of the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.

He has published extensively on language and cognitive development in such journals as: Developmental Psychology, Human Development, Discourse Processes, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, and Language and Society. He is co-author of three books and three special issues of journals. His research in developmental neuroscience has been funded by the Whitehall Foundation of Palm Beach, Florida. In developmental neuroscience, Hall has published regularly in the following journals: Brain, Behavior, and Evolution; and the Journal of Comparative Neurology. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1981, Hall held faculty positions at: (1) Vassar College; (2) Princeton University; (3) The Rockefeller University where he was Co-Director of the Institute for Comparative Human Development; (4) The University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana; (5) New York University; (6) Visiting Faculty Appointments at Stanford University, the University of California, San Diego, and Northwestern University, and was the Henry B. Luce Visiting Professor of Psychology at Williams College in 1985.

Since taking a sabbatical leave in 1989-90 and completing a fellowship in Neuroanatomy, Hall has worked in neuroscience where his research is focusing on a fundamental issue in Psychology and biology: What is the nature of the interaction between environmental stimulation and innate factors in the development of learned behaviors? Using a small parrot (the budgerigar) as a model system, he is exploring this question by investigating the neural mechanisms underlying a special learning process, vocal learning of distance calls. The interdisciplinary focus of his research is a very natural one as there are a number of compelling parallels between vocal learning processes in humans and birds which cut across issues in both Psychology and Neuroscience.

Hall’s research has been funded since 1970 as follows: (a) 1970-1971, The Carnegie Corporation of New York; (b) 1971-73, The Office of Child Development (HEW), (c) 1974-1977, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, (d) 1975-1978, the Ford Foundation, (e) 1977-1978, the Carnegie Corporation, (f) 1978-1979, the University of California, San Diego, (g) 1978-1981, NIE, (h)1988-1990, State of Maryland, (i) 1991-1994, The Whitehall Foundation, (j) 1992-1996, OERI, (k) 1994-to present, NIDCD, (l) 1999-2007, NIGMS, and (m) 1999-2007, NIMH.

 

 

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