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William K. Hallman, PhD (he/him/his)

Distinguished Professor
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States

Dr. William K. Hallman is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Human Ecology and a member of the graduate faculties of the Department of Nutritional Sciences and the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. An experimental psychologist (PhD., University of South Carolina, 1989) with expertise in risk perception and risk and science communication, his scholarship focuses on food, health, technology, and the environment. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, abstracts, and monographs on topics including studies of perceptions, communication, and behavior change strategies regarding food safety, foodborne illness outbreaks, food recalls, food insecurity, and food labeling, as well as nutrition and preventive health behaviors. He has also conducted extensive studies of consumer perceptions and acceptance of new food technologies, including genetic modification, gene editing, nanotechnology, animal cloning, aquaculture, and labeling cell-cultured meat, poultry, and seafood. In addition, he has conducted interdisciplinary research on the impacts of environmental contaminants in food, water, air, and soil, as well as infectious and non-infectious diseases, unexplained symptom syndromes, natural and technological disasters, and climate adaptation and mitigation.


Dr. Hallman is a contributing author of Communicating Science Effectively, A Research Agenda, published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), the Handbook of the Science of Science Communication, published by Oxford University Press, the Risk Communication Applied to Food Safety Handbook, and Food Safety Aspects of Cell-based Food, both published by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization of the United Nations. He has also given over 600 presentations on risk perception and communication issues in more than 35 countries.


Dr. Hallman founded Rutgers Against Hunger (RAH) in 2008, a university-wide organization dedicated to alleviating food insecurity on campus and throughout the state. In 2009, he established the New Brunswick Community Farmers' Market and its associated community gardens, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of fresh, nutritious, locally grown produce to food-insecure residents at no cost.


He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an elected Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), and a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as Chair of the Department of Human Ecology, Director of the Rutgers Food Policy Institute, Chair of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Risk Communication Advisory Committee, and as a member of the Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication, the Climate Communications Initiative, the Climate Crossroads Advisory Committee, and other committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

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