Professor David Hall has worked at the Natural Resources Institute and its predecessor organisations for 45 years. He was made Professor of Chemical Ecology in 1997. At the University of Greenwich he has worked as director of the Agricultural Research Centre, deputy head of the Pest Management Department and head of the Chemical Ecology Group.

Professor Hall is a natural products chemist with over 45 years' experience in the isolation, identification, synthesis, formulation and field application of insect semiochemicals and other natural products for monitoring and controlling pests and diseases of crops, livestock and humans. He has extensive short-term overseas experience in Asia, Africa and South America.

Professor Hall's research is directed at reducing the use of conventional, chemical insecticides through the development of more environmentally acceptable and sustainable approaches, particularly those based on natural products such as pheromones and other semiochemicals. His work has had major impacts on the development of bait technologies to control tsetse fly throughout Africa, and on the use of pheromones against pests of rice, cotton, coffee and cocoa in Africa and SE Asia. In Europe he has been particularly successful in developing new approaches to the management of beetle pests in pine forests and midge pests in a range of horticultural crops. This work has been carried out with an extensive network of collaborators in research institutes, universities and commercial companies throughout the world.

Professor Hall is author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He was awarded the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers' prize for research and development in 2004 and the University of Greenwich's prize for Research and Enterprise in 2007 and was part of the NRI team that was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2019.

Professor Hall is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an active member of the local Kent Section Committee, for which he has served as Chairman and Treasurer.