Hill's research focused on the chemistry of enzymes, with particular specialization in glycosyltransferases and glycobiology.
[1][2] He was named to the James B. Duke professorship in 1965[2] and served as department chair from 1969 to 1993, succeeding Handler after the latter assumed the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences.
He joined the editorial board in 1965 and became associate editor in 1988, a role he kept after his retirement from Duke and until shortly before his death in 2012.
[1][2] Hill developed an interest in protein chemistry during his postdoctoral work and became known for his studies of hemoglobin while at Utah.
He made major contributions to the study of immunoglobulin structure and was particularly influential in the field of glycobiology, which became a major focus of his work after he and collaborating scientists discovered that lactose synthetase contains a glycosyltransferase enzyme.