Dr. Dionne Pohler is an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan Edwards School of Business. She holds the Co-operative Retailing System Chair in Co-operative Governance at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy and Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives and a status appointment at the University of Toronto Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources. She was recently appointed as vice-chair of an independent taskforce responsible for making recommendations for the modernization of the federal Employment Equity Act. She is also a practicing mediator.

Her previous and ongoing research covers topics on work and employment, unions and labour relations, conflict and dispute resolution, co-operative governance, human resource management, rural issues, and public policy. Major current projects include exploring impacts of COVID-19 policies on workers, rural-urban polarization, and drivers of the gender earnings gap in Canada. She edited the Labor and Employment Relations Association annual research volume, Reimagining the Governance of Work and Employment (2020), distributed through Cornell University Press and co-edited (with Clark Banack) Building Inclusive Communities in Rural Canada (2023) published with the University of Alberta Press. 

Dionne helped develop a co-operative model of economic and social development alongside western Canadian rural settler and indigenous communities as one of the co-investigators on the Co-operative Innovation Project. CIP led to the creation of a non-profit organization, Co-operatives First, dedicated to working with rural communities to address the needs identified by community members. Dionne was a founding board member of Co-operatives First, which has assisted communities and leaders start over 130 new co-operative enterprises.

Dionne holds a PhD in Human Resources and Industrial Relations from the University of Alberta School of Business, a Bachelor of Commerce from Dalhousie University, and a Chartered Professional in Human Resources designation from CPHR Saskatchewan. Her research is published in national and international peer-reviewed academic journals including ILR Review, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Canadian Public Policy, and Human Resource Management. She holds four international awards for her research and three university teaching awards. She has received several Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grants and a major industry grant, and is an active public and media commentator. Read some of her public opinions and comments here.