Pohl Recipient of Distinguished Award in Operations Research

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Ed Pohl

Ed Pohl, professor and department head of industrial engineering, has received the 2021 J. Steinhardt Prize from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

The J. Steinhardt Prize is sponsored by the CNA Corporation. The prize is awarded for outstanding contributions to military operations research and honors a person's life work rather than any particular contribution. The selection committee is composed of previous award winners. The award is accompanied by a plaque and a $2,000 honorarium.

“It’s wonderful for Dr. Pohl to receive this well-deserved recognition for research and service over his lifetime to help our military protect the freedoms we enjoy,” said Kim Needy, dean of the College of Engineering. “We are fortunate to have his outstanding leadership and expertise in educating future industrial engineers who will help continue this important legacy.”

Pohl's primary research interests are in risk, reliability, engineering optimization, health care and supply chain risk analysis, decision making and quality.  

He is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Management, the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers and the Society of Reliability Engineers. Pohl is a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society for Quality, a diplomate in the Society of Health Systems and a member of the International Council on Systems Engineering, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences and the Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management.

He is the recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship, including the Alan O. Plait Award for Tutorial Excellence, the A.J. Golomski Award and many awards for outstanding service to students and teaching.

Before coming to Arkansas, Pohl 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. Previously, he served as 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 munition logistics manager at the Air Force Operational Test Center.

He received his Ph.D. in systems and industrial engineering from the University of Arizona. He holds an M.S. in systems engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology and an M.S. in reliability engineering from the University of Arizona, an M.S. in engineering management from the University of Dayton and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Boston University.

About the J. Steinhardt Prize: A founding member of the Operations Research Society of America, Jacinto "Jay" Steinhardt served on the original Council and Publications Committee of the society in 1952-53. He was elected vice president of the Operations Research Society of America the following year and acceded to the presidency in the society's third year. He contributed greatly over the years to the operations research community through his work in military operations research and his thoughts on the philosophy of the discipline. ORSA merged in 1995 with The Institute of Management Sciences, creating the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.