Former Faculty Focus: Doug Poggioli (ASL 1999-2019)

Doug Poggioli at work explaining a math problem to a student. He cites patience and his knack for explaining things as two attributes that helped him succeed as a teacher.

When one considers the sheer volume of contributions Mr. Poggioli made to ASL’s high school math department during his 20-year tenure here, or the hundreds of Eagle students and families whose lives he shaped, it is difficult to believe that this gifted mathematician and educator could have ever chosen a different path to teaching math. Adept at curriculum design, for example, Mr. Poggioli created several high-level ASL math courses, including Vector Analysis for students who completed BC Calculus, the first iteration of the (still popular) financial math class, and the Fractals and Chaos Theory elective.

Example of the fractals created in Mr. P's elective

On an occasion when an adequate resource wasn’t available for his students, he wrote an online book for them to use—“Before that was even a thing,” explains friend and former co-worker Mark Barsoum (ASL 2008-present). In 2015, Doug helped coordinate ASL’s inaugural hosting of the International Schools Mathematics Teacher Foundation (ISMTF) Senior Competition for Grade 11 and 12 students—a departmental collaboration involving late-night planning and pizza that remains a true highlight of his ASL experience. Mr. P led numerous independent studies, spent part of his sabbatical studying the Sixth Term Examination Papers (STEP) questions used by Cambridge and other UK universities so that he could integrate these into his own ASL senior seminar, and just last month, gave a mock interview to a current senior applying to Oxford. And yet, this tireless veteran of the Top Red math pod recently confessed that his real love, at least in high school and college, was history—not math.

Raised in suburban New York and later Virginia Beach with three siblings, Doug was enamored with stories of the fall of Rome and medieval civilization. “I was influenced by the historian Margaret Tuchman,” Doug reasons, whose books lined his shelves as a kid. Even now, he estimates that 80% of his personal library is historical nonfiction. “The Middle Ages—that was going to be my thing.” But despite his early predilection for the Dark Age period, Doug is, at heart, a Renaissance man: a pianist with a knack for sight reading; a lover of language who taught himself German and French; and a hobby biologist who took up residence in Robben Island, South Africa, to study its penguin colony. Math, like most things, came easily to Doug, but there were numerous interests competing for his time during his adolescence and early adulthood. History, for instance! As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, he declared himself a history major but had to take a few math courses to fulfill his liberal arts degree. To Doug’s surprise (but maybe no one else’s), he threw himself into these. “I liked the idea of solving things,” he recalls. Even when he had to really hack away at a problem to find the solution, the process was deeply rewarding. Not only did Doug earn a B.A. in mathematics, he tacked on two additional years to earn a master’s in it too.

Doug's original ASL staff photo from the 1999 yearbook

Next, a new challenge presented itself: What career does one pursue with a math degree? Neither banking nor accountancy was appealing to Mr. P. “My summers as a bank teller did not inspire me,” he explains. “I had peers going into cryptography, but I wanted to find something that I could look forward to and fire me up.” His experience as a TA in grad school fit the bill. “I liked interacting with young people and explaining ideas,” Doug shares. And his patience was an asset to doing both of these well. Within a year of graduating from Virginia Tech, Doug landed his first teaching job at Ransom Everglades High School in Miami, Florida. Mentored by an encouraging principal and enrolled in nightly classes to hone his teaching, he found his feet and his stride as a math teacher. “Ransom was an amazing school to launch my career,” praises Doug. Pushed to lead cross-disciplinary seminars, he co-taught a postmodernism course in the English department and another class about culture and science at the turn of the 20th century. After a three-week, solo trip to Germany kindled a desire to live abroad, Doug researched teaching positions at international schools. A brief meeting with former Head of School Bill Mules (ASL 1998-2007) at a job fair in Texas led to a 20-year stint in London and ASL. “Those were some of the best years of my life,” Doug says wistfully. 

Doug and Tony Bracht pose in matching outfits during a typical work day

Walking into ASL’s main entrance, then on Loudoun Road, in the fall of 1999, Doug immediately felt a sense of belonging. “I loved the school from the beginning,” he remembers. “Not only did it give me many opportunities for growth and challenge, it also gave me the chance to work with great teachers—some of whom remain my closest friends today.” They include colleagues like Tony Bracht (ASL 2002-present), who served as Doug’s best man in his wedding in 2017 and still holds him in the highest regard. “Doug has an extraordinary emotional and social intelligence,” Tony compliments. “He knows how to connect with people, which is part of what made him a phenomenal teacher. He is also one of the smartest people I know.” 

Mr. P’s unique connectivity is an attribute that Mark Barsoum also notes. “Doug was so down-to-earth with his students, and really got to know them personally as much as he knew them as mathematicians,” he shares. 

Much of that personal understanding Doug had of his students grew from the time he made for them outside of class, providing kids with extra help or advising their project or club. These “small moments of student connection” are some of the things he misses most about ASL since he and his husband, Matt, left London in 2019. “I miss the students and their wild energy,” he explains. “Teenagers carry a whirlwind of emotion that is both exhilarating and occasionally overwhelming, and helping them learn to channel those forces is a satisfying thing to spend your life doing.”

He also misses the Alternatives trips he embarked on: to Salamanca, Budapest and most memorably, Slovenia, where he, Buck Herron (ASL 1998-2020) and a group of intrepid high schoolers were rowed across Lake Bled to visit a castle carved out of a mountain. “That trip was a reminder of why I moved to Europe in the first place: to see the strange and the beautiful,” he enthuses.

That craving for adventure and beautiful quietude inspired Doug and Matt’s departure from city life in London to a small town near Toulouse, France, for three years. The couple could only speak high school-level French when they moved, though Doug’s dear friend Victoria Hamadache (ASL 1985-present) did her best to improve their competency during remote tutoring sessions held in Covid times.

Doug and Vicky Hamadache, third from left, at ASL's graduation with former students

“Doug is the best friend anyone could ask for,” she lauds. “He is honest, caring and witty, always willing to listen, and always circling back to see how you are.”

Within this past year, Doug and Matt have made another move, this time to Raleigh, North Carolina, to be closer to family. When he’s not tutoring, or tapping away on his new Steinway grand, or reupholstering an old chair in his makeshift garage workshop, you’re likely to find Doug with his nose in a book, sitting next to his faithful cat Sydney. Recent reads include The Song of the Cell (“I finally got a long-overdue lesson in cell biology,” he adds. “It's shocking, really!”) and Interesting Integrals. “There’s always something new to learn,” Doug muses. This summer, he and Matt will be traveling to Puglia, Italy, for the wedding of a former student. “The relationships I formed at ASL are still very much alive,” affirms Doug. Alumni parents Lois and Jeff Meyer P ’07 ’10 ’12 ’16 attest to this. “Doug is a talented person who has touched many,” they write. “He’s a forever friend.”

Lois and Jeff Meyer took a selfie with former security guard Bhupendra Patel when they came to London to attend Doug and Matt's wedding in June 2017