Robert Hall Biography

Bob Hall has been a public policy researcher for nonprofit organizations since 1970. He is the former executive director of the Institute for  Southern Studies and founded its quarterly journal, Southern Exposure, which  has won numerous honors, including the National Magazine Award and the  George Polk Award.

Hall has conducted an array of studies on social, economic and political conditions, including the The Democracy Index (1992 and 1996), The Green Index: A State-by-State Guide to the Nation's Environmental Health (1991) and Environmental Politics: Lessons from the Grassroots (1987). He is currently research director for Democracy North Carolina and, since 1995,  has provided consultative advice and/or expert testimony for government officials in a dozen states related to election law and campaign finance reform.

Hall has also helped the founding of a variety of citizens organizations, such as the Carolina Brown Lung Association, Southerners for Economic  Justice, the Fund for Southern Communities, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, and North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections.

Hall has a BA from Rhodes College in Memphis and a MA from Columbia University in New York. He lives with his wife and daughter in Orange County, North Carolina. He has been honored as "Tar Heel of the Week" by the Raleigh News and Observer, and included in Marquis' Who's Who in the South & Southwest. In 1992, he was named a MacArthur Fellow (the so-called "genius" fellowship) by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago.