Ralph P. Hall

Role and Background

Dr. Ralph Hall is a Professor in the Urban Affairs and Planning (UAP) program at Virginia Tech, a Joann Boughman Innovation Fellow at the Universities at Shady Grove (USG), the Associate Director of the Center for Future Work Places and Practices, the Head of Outreach & Engagement for the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies (CEUTS), and an Affiliated Faculty member of the Honors College. He joined Virginia Tech in 2009. 

Dr. Hall has over two decades of academic and professional experience in applying the concept of sustainable development to socio-technical systems with a specific emphasis on transportation systems in developed regions and rural water supply and sanitation systems in developing regions. Prof. Hall has co-led three major research projects that studied the emerging concept of multiple-use water services (MUS) in Colombia, Senegal, and Kenya for the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), evaluated a rural water program in Nampula, Mozambique for the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and explored the impacts of blockchain technology on improving food security through African Indigenous Vegetables in Western Kenya for USAID LASER PULSE. Hall has also published two significant co-authored works on “Sustainable Transportation: Indicators, Frameworks, and Performance Management” (2015) and “Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development: Transforming the Industrial State” (2018). He is currently developing research agendas around new economics (with a focus on binary economics and community wealth building), food access and security at higher education institutions, and blockchain technology to improve food security in last-mile agricultural communities. He also continues to lead the  Mzuni Library Initiative that designed a new library for Mzuzu University in Malawi following the loss of their facility to a fire in 2015. The construction of the new library is scheduled for completion in 2025. 

Dr. Hall's teaching reflects his research interests and covers topics such as sustainable water and sanitation services in developing regions, international development planning, sustainable urbanization, the future of employment, and new economics. He also co-teaches the Virginia Tech Honors College SuperStudio. 

He completed a two-year postdoc at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University before joining Virginia Tech.

Education

Dr. Hall holds a PhD in Technology, Management, and Policy and two master's degrees in Technology and Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also holds a master of engineering (MEng) in Civil Engineering from the University of Southampton in the UK.