Mr Hall-McMaster (22) was born and grew up in Christchurch, attended Cashmere High School, and last year completed a BSc (Hons) in neuroscience from Otago.
In 2014, then a third-year student, he also won a national Eureka! Sir Paul Callaghan Award, after giving a talk about how nanoparticles could solve some of New Zealand's health and environmental issues.
He will leave New Zealand this weekend to spend five months in Europe before he starts his DPhil studies at Oxford University in October.
Last week he learned he had been awarded a William Georgetti Scholarship, amounting to $156,000, to support his Oxford studies.
And last year, he was also awarded a $97,500 international PhD scholarship from the Rutherford Foundation Trust.
He will also receive return air flights between New Zealand and the United Kingdom during his three-year studies.
The scholarship funding was an "enormous privilege'' and he was "very determined to make the most of this opportunity'', Mr Hall-McMaster said.
His project was focused on using "some of the best tools of cognitive psychology and neuroscience'' to examine how people could overcome setbacks in relation to their goals, and achieving "more valuable, long-term rewards'', he said.