Dr. Halter is Professor Emeritus of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at the University of Michigan, where he served as Chief of the Division of Geriatric Medicine for 27 years. He is also Parkway Visiting Professor in Geriatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He was founding Director of the UM Geriatrics Center and the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. He was PI of the National Institute on Aging funded Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at the University of Michigan from its initial funding in 1989 until his retirement in 2016. He continues to serve as Senior Scientific Advisor for the UM Pepper Center. It is one of a network of such Centers funded to enhance applied and translational research on health problems of older adults and to train academic leaders in aging research. Dr. Halter is an author of over 300 research papers and book chapters, and has served as Senior Editor of the 6-8th editions of Hazzard’s Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, published by McGraw-Hill. The 8th edition will be published in Spring, 2022. Dr. Halter is currently working with leadership of the National University Health System of the National University of Singapore to build an expanded academic Geriatrics program there.

Dr. Halter has been President (1998-99) and Chairman of the Board of Directors (1999-2000) of the American Geriatrics Society; he is a past Chair of the Clinical Medicine Section of the Gerontological Society of America. He is a former Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and is a member of several U.S. advisory panels on diabetes and geriatrics research. He has been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received the Donald P. Kent Award from the Gerontological Society of America and the 2008 Nascher/Manning Award from the American Geriatrics Society. Dr. Halter has been an active member of the American Diabetes Association and the Endocrine Society throughout his career. He has served on the following ADA Committees: Research Review (including as Chair), Professional Education, Scientific Sessions Meeting, Scientific and Medical Meetings Oversight. Dr. Halter served on the Endocrine Society’s Diabetes in Older Adults Task Force, which published a new guideline on diabetes care for this population in May, 2019.

Dr. Halter's research interests include neuroendocrine regulation of metabolism in aging and in diabetes mellitus, and regulation of autonomic nervous system function. He has a career long interest in diabetes mellitus in older adults and is recognized as an international authority on this topic. His research has emphasized the pathophysiology of impaired glucose regulation with aging and its relationship to the high risk for developing diabetes in older age. His work has focused on assessing in quantitative terms pancreatic beta cell function in humans. His work has consistently emphasized the critical role of impaired beta cell function in the evolution of disorders of glucose metabolism in humans. In particular, he has identified impairments of pancreatic beta cell function occurring with aging in humans, while providing in addition strong support for the conceptual model of failing pancreatic beta cell function in the presence of life style factors leading to insulin resistance, resulting in the syndrome of age-related hyperglycemia and type 2 diabetes. Hypoglycemia is a key challenge in management of hyperglycemia, especially in older adults. Dr. Halter has helped to clarify the importance of the adrenergic system in the response to hypoglycemia, the role of the liver in sensing hypoglycemia, and the effect of age on hypoglycemia counter-regulatory mechanisms in humans.

Dr. Halter’s group also has played a key role in defining age-related changes in function of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Overall these findings support the concept that increased SNS activity and failure to appropriately down-regulate receptor responsiveness contributes to the high rate of hypertension and impaired blood pressure regulation in older people. Using tracer methodology to characterize the kinetics of the key SNS neurotransmitter, norepinephrine (NE), in humans, Dr. Halter was able to demonstrate that increased NE release is the cause of the age-related increase of circulating NE levels, indicating that SNS activity is increased. Dr. Halter and colleagues also demonstrated that there is appropriate down-regulation of adrenergic receptor function in normal older people in response to the age-related increase of SNS activity, but there is impaired down-regulation in older people with hypertension and in diabetes. Dr. Halter was a key member of a research team that defined the SNS responses to intense exercise in humans and the interactions of the SNS with glucose regulation in normal humans and those with diabetes intense exercise.