Professor Richard Hall BSc (Hons), PhD, MInstP, CPhys

Professor Richard M Hall is a Research Professor at the University of Birmingham within the School of Engineering. Richard is incredibly excited by the opportunities this post brings working with the University of Birmingham medical engineering community and within the wider Birmingham and Midlands ecosystem. The University has built an impressive environment for MedTech research from the Health Technologies Institute through to the Birmingham Health Partners. 

Richard has an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Leeds and was awarded a PhD from the University of Lancaster.  He previously worked as a Professor at the University of Leeds with the School of Mechanical Engineering as well as Medicine. Richard is a member of the Institute of Physics and a Chartered Physicist.

Richard’s interests are related to bone disease, the spine and/or joint arthroplasty, that is replacement of the total or partial joint. Increasingly, alternative strategies are being used in arthroplasty to augment natural tissues in an attempt to delay the replacement procedure. As well as investigating new types of interventions, he is an advocate of the development of novel testing methodologies that allow more realistic assessment of the proposed intervention akin to how the device would be used in the real world. In pursuit of thee goals, he has accrued funding from the EU, UKRI/EPSRC and NIH (USA) as well as gaining grants from a number of smaller funders including several charities. He has co-ordinated a number of large-scale research projects involving international collaborators namely those in Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia amongst others. Current projects include:

• Oncological Engineering (Principal Investigator: EPSRC funded programme grant)
• BioTrib (Coordinator (Principal Investigator): EU funded European Training Network)
• BioTrib AVN (Coordinator: EU funded European Training Network)
• Richard previously was the Coordinator (Principal Investigator) for LifeLongJoints, a €18.3M EU funded activity for new technologies in joint replacement.

Richard also has a burgeoning interest in providing research and engagement with people living with HIV. Whilst this is primarily concerned with bone disease arising from the virus itself, in some cases, a side effect of the highly effective treatment protocols and the gut microbiome, he also realises that successful interventions need a more holistic approach bringing in personnel from patients, social scientists and clinicians as well as engineers.

The further wider skills set that Richard brings to the position are in the areas of:

• Leadership and management of innovative programmes of research and research training in the UK and internationally.
• Development of international and UK networks to promote and deliver research, mentoring and innovation.
• To deliver multidisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and engages closely with users and the wider stakeholder community.
• Mentoring personnel particularly those that come to academia from non-standard backgrounds.
• Patient engagement and co-creation of research.

In terms of technical aspects of his role, Richard's expertise has enable him to deliver research in the areas of:

• Spinal technology and assessment.
• Joint arthroplasty particularly biotribology.
• Bone disease and trauma.