Our Team
Rob Anderson - Director and Principal
PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Adelaide
Since 2009, Rob has provided consultancy services in the areas of accident reconstruction and injury biomechanics for insurers, claimants, and their legal representatives throughout Australia, as well as in the US and the Asia Pacific region. Advice has been on matters arising from fatal, catastrophic, moderate, and minor injury accidents.
Rob joined Anderson Hall (then Hall Technical) in 2014 after a 21-year career in full-time research at the University of Adelaide, where he currently holds the title of Adjunct Associate Professor. Rob commenced his research career in 1993 at the University's Road Accident Research Unit (RARU), investigating crashes for a study on airbag effectiveness. In 1999, he completed his PhD on the biomechanics of impact-induced diffuse axonal injury (one of the most common and debilitating forms of brain injury), which earned him the Elizabeth Penfold Simpson Prize for Brain Injury Research.
Rob was appointed Deputy Director at RARU in 1999 and then at the Centre for Automotive Safety Research that replaced it. He oversaw the development of a test facility for testing vehicles for pedestrian safety for the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, developed expertise in pedestrian kinematics and pedestrian injury biomechanics, and chaired an international committee on computer simulation of pedestrian crash mechanics. He sat on the Injury Biomechanics Panel of Engineers Australia for many years and has sat on national committees developing best practice guidelines on the use of child restraints. Rob developed and taught a course on vehicle safety and crash mechanics for final-year undergraduate engineering students at the University of Adelaide. Over his career, Rob has published in excess of 150 journal articles, conference papers, and government reports on many aspects of crashes, injury mechanisms, and injury prevention, road safety, and vehicle safety, and is a highly regarded authority on vehicle safety, road safety, and injury biomechanics.
Jeffrey Dutschke - Accident Analyst
BE (Hons) BSc (Maths and Comp Sc) PhD
Since 2019, Jeff has been an Accident Analyst at Anderson Hall. His current activities include collision reconstruction, biomechanical analyses and modelling.
After completing his undergraduate degrees on 2005, Jeff completed a PhD at the Centre for Automotive Safety Research examining the methods used to measure the risk of head injury. As an employee at the Centre for Automotive Safety Research prior to joining Anderson Hall, Jeff routinely attended active crash scenes as part of the the in-depth crash investigation team, and conducted research into various topics including cycling safety, injury risk due to travel speed and speed limit, large data-set analysis, and brain and spine biomechanics. Jeff had the opportunity to work in Canada at a successful tech startup company in 2013 & 14 engaging in a number of responsibilities including customer support, and product design.
Ingrid Cother - Office manager and technical assistance
B Nurs., Grad. Dip. MHN
Ingrid is the Business Manager. She has qualifications in nursing and mental health, providing technical and administrative assistance.
Chris Hall - Founding partner
BE (Hons)
Chris graduated from the University of Adelaide with an Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1974 and embarked on post-graduate studies while working as a Junior Research Fellow with the Road Accident Research Unit (now the Centre for Accident Safety and Research) from 1975 - 1978. During his period with RARU, Chris worked with Ray McHenry's original version of SMAC (Simulation Model of Automobile Collisions) developed at CALSPAN. He carried out some of the earliest work looking at the difference in braking deceleration of motorcycles under rear wheel braking and combined front and rear wheel braking.
Chris moved to the University of Queensland in 1979 where he carried out research into the effects of concentrated light on photovoltaic cells as well as tutoring in mechanical design. He maintained an active role in the field of alternative energy research and development until 1988.
Chris began consulting in the field of motor vehicle accidents when he joined Amdel in 1981, heading up the destructive and non-destructive testing laboratories there for several years prior to establishing Hall Technical Services in 1985. He has consulted on a wide range of vehicle accident categories and vehicle component failures. He has also been involved in the design of motor-racing circuits and consulted to the Formula 1 race event at Albert Park on safety issues between 2002 and 2009. He has delivered lectures at various universities across the USA on topics ranging from general accident reconstruction through to motorcycle dynamics, and has been a regular paper reviewer for the Society of Automotive Engineers International World Congress. He is a past member of the Standards Australia committee dealing with protective helmets for vehicles users. In his spare time, Chris remains an active competitor in motocross both nationally and internationally.