Q: What is your academic and/or professional background?
A: I have a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering. I have a master’s in engineering management and systems engineering. I also have a bachelor’s in electrical engineering. I have a mix of management and engineering. Experience wise, I spent twenty years in the air force working in technology acquisition, system design and system engineering for most of my career. I’ve been here since 2004. I started off as an associate, and now I’m the department head in industrial engineering.
Q: Did you always know that you wanted to teach? How did you become a professor?
A: I did. The Air Force sent me to graduate school to come back and teach for them. Once I had done that, I knew that once I retired I wanted to find an academic job because I enjoyed teaching cadets and students when I was in the Air Force.
Q: What is your role within your department?
A: I look at my role as an opportunity to help my faculty facilitate their research programs. I try to find ways and help make them successful. My goal is to try and help them find resources and good students that will help make their research programs successful. I try and teach one class a semester, because that is why I got into academia, to teach.
Q: Are you involved in any research at the moment?
A: I still have a couple Ph.D. students, a master’s student, and a couple honors students. I’m still actively engaged in some research projects with students. I also have some research contracts I had before I became the department head, so I am still working those as well. Like everyone else, I am still looking for opportunity to research with students to stay engaged.
(Pohl still conducts research for the Air Force in the area of reliability and maintainability. He also works with the National Transportation Security Center of Excellence on projects related to homeland security. In this area, Pohl uses reliability and optimization models to help design robust supply chains and help existing supply chain networks recover from natural or human-made disruptions. Pohl also conducts research in the area of healthcare logistics where he uses industrial engineering tools and techniques to explore opportunities for making the delivery of healthcare more efficient.)
Q: What opportunities are available to students (internships, research opportunities, assistantships, etc.)? Where to find out about these opportunities?
A: In our department, at the graduate level, we have the master’s in industrial engineering and Ph.D. in industrial engineering, which are research oriented degrees. So we offer graduate assistantships that are competitive for students in both the master’s and Ph.D. programs. Information about that is on our webpage. Those students have to meet the grad school criteria, go through a formal evaluation process with our graduate committee, and the committee will make recommendations to me about who we should fund based on the available resources we have to fund students that year. We are always trying to bring in 4 – 6 students every year to try and keep our Ph.D. program vibrant. We also have a master’s in operations management, which is what we call a more professional master’s degree. It is geared towards the working professional to give them tools and skills they need to help advance in their careers.
Q: Where are students now (recent graduates and alumnae)?
A: We have been successful in placing our students. One of my Ph.D. students is a faculty at Mississippi State. Other recent grads are at: The University of Dayton-Ohio, Rensselaer Poly Tech-New York, Lamar University-Texas, Southeast Missouri State, and Louisiana Tech. We’ve been pretty successful at placing our Ph.D. students in the last few years at good schools.
Q: What are the most challenging and the most rewarding parts of your job?
A: The most rewarding part of my job is working with students: being able to work with students, getting to know students and help them achieve their goals. In the classroom, the most rewarding part is having students feel a sense of accomplishment and understanding when they leave your class to they are ready to go onto the next class or into the work force and take what you’ve taught them and apply it. Also, as a department head, another rewarding part is seeing your faculty members successful and their hard work pay off in terms of recognition for good journal papers or research grants.
Q: What is your best memory of your job from your time at the U of A?
A: Wow there is a lot. I guess watching my wife walk across the stage and get her Ph.D., and my son get his bachelor’s degree, and hopefully my next kids. The most enjoyable time it watching your students at graduation. For me, watching my family and students at graduation celebrate their accomplishment is the most rewarding day of the year for us.
Q: What is your favorite part about Arkansas/NWA/Fayetteville?
A: This is the longest we’ve ever lived somewhere as a family. Our favorite part of Arkansas is the rolling hills. We like the beautiful landscape, especially this time of the year with the trees changing. It’s called the ‘Natural State,’ and we appreciate that. We also like the smallness of the community you feel here in Fayetteville.
Q: What is your favorite part about working with international students?
A: I always learn something new: about their culture, religion, politics, and families. You are always learning new thing, which is great for our students to learn about those other cultures. In our department we strive to try and get our students to get a ‘global experience’ through a study abroad or international internships because in today’s society you have to be a global engineer to be competitive and operate in a global environment.
Q: Do you have any advice for prospective and/or current students?
A: My advice is to work hard and if you have issues, seek help and get them addressed early. There are lots of resources here to help students. Don’t wait until it’s ‘too late.’ Sometimes our international students are afraid to ask for help early on and I think it would be beneficial if they did, because our goal is for students to be successful. If students don’t ask for help, it is hard for us to know that they are having problems or issues. My biggest recommendation is: when you have questions, concerns or issues, ask for help.
Q: What is your favorite quote or motto that you live by?
A: On all of my emails, I have what we call, the ‘Air Force core values,’ which are, ‘Integrity first, Service before self, and Excellence in all we do.’
Q: What is your favorite place you’ve visited?
A: Paris, of course is a wonderful city. I also recently went to Southern India and it was an interesting place with diverse culture and very beautiful location. The Rockies are also one of my favorite places in the U.S. I also love my home city of Boston. It’s a nice city to visit culturally with lots of things to do.
