Zach W. Hall is a neurobiologist with an illustrious career that has included acting as director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) from 1994 to 1997 and serving as the first president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine from 2005 until his retirement in 2007. In between these appointments, Hall also served as the Executive Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California, San Francisco from 1998 to 2001, returning to an institution where he had spent the bulk of his research career (1976–1994).

Over the course of his career, Hall made numerous fundamental contributions to our understanding of the neuromuscular junction and is the author and an editor of the widely used textbook An Introduction to Molecular Neurobiology.

Hall is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Neurological Association and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2003, he received the Purkynje Medal for Scientific Achievement from the Czech Academy of Science.