Industrial Engineering Department Head Elected to Serve as Regional Director of Society

Photo by University Relations

Ed Pohl, head of the Department of Industrial Engineering

Professor Ed Pohl was recently elected to serve as the South Central Regional director of the American Society for Engineering Management.

Pohl is head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas. He also serves as the director of the Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics. He previously served as the director of the Operations Management Program at the University of Arkansas.

Pohl has participated and led several risk and supply chain related research efforts while at the University of Arkansas. Before coming to Arkansas, he spent 21 years in the United States Air Force where he served in a variety of engineering, operations analysis and academic positions during his career.  

Previous assignments include the deputy director of the Operations Research Center at the United States Military Academy, operations analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he performed independent cost schedule, performance and risk assessments on major Department of Defense acquisition programs, and as a munitions logistics manager at the Air Force Operational Test Center.

Pohl received his Doctor of Philosophy in systems and industrial engineering from the University of Arizona. He holds master's degrees in systems engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, in reliability engineering from the University of Arizona, and in engineering management from the University of Dayton, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Boston University.

His primary research interests are in risk, reliability, engineering optimization, healthcare and supply chain risk analysis, decision making, and quality. Pohl is a fellow of IIE, and a senior member of IEEE, senior member of ASQ, member of INCOSE, INFORMS, ASEE, ASEM and AHRMM. He is also a certified material and resources professional.

ASEM, the American Society for Engineering Management, is the society that speaks for the profession of engineering management across the world. Members include academics from engineering management departments and closely affiliated departments such as Industrial engineering as well as engineering management professionals from a wide variety of high technology industries.

ASEM provides a certification program for MSEM degree programs similar to the ABET program for undergraduate engineering degrees. It also provides an engineering manager certification program for individuals interested in validating their skills and capabilities as engineering managers. ASEM is also the managing society for the Engineering Management Body of knowledge and is responsible for the enhancement and evolution of this source of knowledge critical to the profession.