Judith Goslin Hall

Dr. Judith Goslin Hall, CM (1939- ) is a pediatrician, clinical geneticist and dysmorphologist who is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. She goes formally as Judith G. Hall and informally as Judy Hall.

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The daughter of a minister, she was born in Boston, Mass. and spent her childhood in New England, the midwestern U.S. and Seattle. She graduated from high school in Seattle and then attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. from which she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961.

She went to medical school in Seattle at the University of Washington (UW) from which she received an MD degree in 1966. The same year she was also awarded an MS degree in Genetics from UW for coursework and research done with Dr. Arno Motulsky in medical genetics.

Dr. Hall then went to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where she did postdoctoral fellowships in Medical Genetics with Dr. Victor McKusick and in Pediatric Endocrinology with Dr. Robert Blizzard. She then trained in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1969 to 1971.

In 1972 she returned to the University of Washington School of Medicine and was given a joint appointment in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine as, successively, Assistant, Associate and Full Professor. She also gained additional depth of knowledge concerning congenital malformations by working in Seattle with the pioneer dysmorphologist, Dr. David W. Smith (1926-1981).

In 1981, Hall was named Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia and the Director of the Genetics Services for British Columbia. From 1990-2000, she was also Professor and Head of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and BC Children's Hospital.

In 1988 she received a Killam Senior Fellowship for a sabbatical year at Oxford University, UK. During 2001, she was a Distinguished Fellow at Christ College, Cambridge University, UK.

Dr. Hall's research has been far-ranging in the areas of congenital malformations including neural tube defects, the genetics of short stature, the mechanisms of disease such as mosaicism and imprinting, the natural history of genetic disorders, the genetics of connective tissue disorders such as arthrogryposis, and monozygotic (identical) twins.[1] She has contributed to the knowledge of a number of syndromes. Her name [2] is associated with the Hall type of pseudoachondroplasia (a severe form of dwarfism with short limbs) and the Hall-Pallister syndrome (hamartoma in the hypothalamus tract, hypopituitarism, imperforate anus and polydactyly).

Dr. Hall has received a number of honors and in 1998 was made an Officer of the Order of Canada as "a leader and world authority in both genetics and pediatrics" and having "contributed to the development of resources and services essential to coping with genetic illnesses" (see [3]).

Quote

"To me, high achievement is not the number of publications but being a successful female in a world of professional men. And by that I mean caring more about peacemaking and nurturing the individual and the environment than success, winning, owning or directing."[4]