Martin Hall

Martin Hall (born in Guildford, He was the first in his family to complete university.

Early career He worked firstly in Lesotho in the area of archaeological excavation and then in London for the Southwark Archaeological Rescue Unit. He moved to South Africa in 1975 where he worked for five years as an ethnoarchaeologist in the Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg. He completed his doctoral studies at Cambridge in 1980 becoming in due course the head of department. In 1983 he became Director of the Centre for African Studies

He is a fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa. He was to be appointed a few months later, in October 2008, as the next vice-chancellor. He arrived at Salford in April 2009 as vice-chancellor designate and officially took up the post on 1 August 2009. Hall stated in June 2013 that Salford had had "too aggressive an industrial-relations stance in previous years."

Personal life Hall holds joint British and South African citizenship. His wife, Professor Brenda Cooper, is an academic specialising in post-colonial and African literature. They have three children.