Rate My Professor John Halliwill

John Halliwill is a Professor in the Department of Human Physiology at the University of Oregon, a position he has held since joining the faculty in 2002. He earned his BS in Zoology from The Ohio State University in 1991 and his PhD in Physiology from the Medical College of Virginia in 1995. Prior to arriving at UO, Halliwill completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mayo Clinic and Foundation and served as an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology there from 1999 to 2002. At Oregon, he co-directs the Exercise and Environmental Physiology Labs at the Bowerman Sports Science Center, which he co-founded along with launching the Evonuk Environmental Physiology Core facility. His career also includes recognition for contributions to teaching excellence, including invitation into the Teaching Academy as a Williams Fellow and founding the national Physiology Majors Interest Group to promote best practices in undergraduate physiology education.

Halliwill's research centers on exercise and environmental physiology, emphasizing cardiovascular responses to physical activity and stressors like heat, cold, and altitude. He demonstrated that post-exercise hypotension represents a beneficial physiological adaptation rather than cardiovascular failure, supporting exercise's role in managing hypertension. Halliwill discovered histamine's function as a signaling molecule in exercise adaptation, revealing that antihistamines at high doses impair performance and training benefits. His investigations have practical impacts, aiding astronaut preparations, Olympic athletes in extreme environments, and US Marines equipment evaluation. Supported by the National Institutes of Health and Wu Tsai Sports Human Performance Alliance, recent works include "Histamine is a molecular transducer of adaptation to endurance exercise training in humans" (Journal of Applied Physiology, 2025), "Heat Therapy: Targeting Health, Disease, and Disability" (Comprehensive Physiology, 2026), and "Evidence of histamine release in response to both aerobic and resistance exercise: histamine metabolites as biomarkers" (Journal of Applied Physiology, 2026). Among his honors are 2025 Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science for advancing exercise-induced cardiovascular adaptation, Fellow of the American Physiological Society (2018), Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and awards from the American Physiological Society and Journal of Applied Physiology. He teaches HPHY 470 Environmental Physiology, integrating research into student projects on human performance under stress.