Maverick Engineering Social Media

John Priest – Open to Opportunities

Boredom. Spare time. Lack of initiative. These terms are not and cannot be used when describing John Priest, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Priest is a professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering and the associate director of the Texas Radio Frequency Innovation and Development Center. Consequently, his areas of interest and investigation are wide ranging, resulting in myriad honors, publications, responsibilities and innovations.

Dr. Priest received his bachelor’s degree at the General Motors Institute (later to become Kettering University) in 1973. He then came to UT Arlington to earn a master’s degree in industrial engineering and stayed to earn a doctorate in 1980. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor of Industrial Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Arkansas.

He returned to UT Arlington in 1982 to conduct research and teach courses in product development and producibility, intelligent systems, environmental engineering, ergonomics, reliability and automation. Much of Dr. Priest’s work was conducted at the Automation & Robotics Research Institute (ARRI), which he helped to develop. At ARRI, he founded the Liquid Metal Jet Laboratory, one of only four of its type in the world. This prototype creation method operates similar to an ink jet printer, except that liquid metal is sprayed, layer upon layer, to produce a one-off device or assembly.

The Liquid Metal Jet Laboratory became the only lab in the UT System to win six Advanced Technology Awards from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Dr. Priest’s involvement with this and other processes at ARRI led to him serving as ARRI’s associate director from 2002 to 2005.

In addition to his research and teaching activities, Dr. Priest served nationally on the President’s Committee for Employment of Persons with Disabilities from 1982 to 1996. During this time, he participated in the development of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He also found time to co-chair the UT Arlington committee that developed a new Management of Technology graduate program conducted jointly by the Colleges of Engineering and Business. He currently chairs the UT Arlington Faculty Senate and is a member of the UT System’s Faculty Advisory Council.

While at UT Arlington, Dr. Priest has published over 150 technical articles, authored two books, received two patents and secured more than $4 million in research funding as a principal investigator. In 2001, he received UT Arlington’s Outstanding Engineering Research Award.

Dr. Priest’s current research activities include methods and systems to prevent runway incursions at the DFW Airport, systems analysis to improve tracking methods (including RFID) for American Airlines’ shipments, scheduling algorithms for General Motors’ vehicle painting operations, fabrication methods for microreactors for biodiesel production and coal liquefaction, and producibility and technical risk assessments for medical microdevices.

What’s next? With his background, anything is possible.