Rate My Professor Jeff Hallo

Jeffrey Hallo, Ph.D., a prominent figure in Social Science at Clemson University, serves as Professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management and as Associate Dean for Academic Policy and Program Effectiveness in the Graduate School. He earned his Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont in 2007, M.S. in Technical (Project) Management from Johns Hopkins University in 2001, and B.S. in Wildlife/Fisheries Biology and Chemistry from Frostburg State University in 1998. Since joining Clemson University in 2007, Hallo has progressed through significant leadership roles, including Graduate Program Coordinator, Honors Director, and Interim Chair of the PRTM department effective March 2020. In his current role, he leads the Policy and Procedure Review Program and Graduate Academic Program Self-Reviews to support equity, inclusion, student health and wellness, faculty workload balance, and continuous improvement of graduate programs.

Hallo's research and teaching focus on understanding, planning for, and managing visitor use in parks, forests, and other protected areas. His expertise includes empirical studies of visitor use management, carrying capacity, sustainable transportation planning, scenic driving and ORV recreation, natural and culturally-based recreation, and modeling of recreational use patterns. Employing methods such as the Interagency Visitor Use Management Framework, GPS, GIS, automated field cameras, visual simulations, surveys, focus groups, Photovoice, and qualitative analysis, his projects occur at sites including Cumberland Island National Seashore, Pinnacles National Park, Acadia National Park, Congaree National Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Denali National Park, Sumter National Forest, Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, Petra Archeological Park in Jordan, and El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico. He led a carrying capacity study at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area informing one of the first formal Visitor Use Management Plans in the U.S. National Park Service and a multi-year study at Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to protect polar bear viewing experiences. Hallo has authored or co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, books, and book chapters. He received university awards for graduate student mentoring and scholarship in 2017 and 2018, a 2022 Distinguished Service award as Interim Chair, and election as a Fellow of The Academy of Leisure Science in 2024. His expertise has been featured in The Washington Post, National Geographic, Delta Sky Magazine, and WalletHub. In 2016, he released his children’s book Rosy Ralph Visits His National Parks.