Faculty

The University of Minnesota's MGIS program features distinguished faculty from a variety of disciplines across different colleges, including geography; forest resources; computer science; urban affairs; and soil, water, and climate. Faculty research interests and applied GIS expertise include:

  • Spatial analysis, modeling, and statistics
  • Spatial data science, cyber GIS, data mining, and AI/machine learning
  • Web GIS and services, including open source 
  • GIS development
  • Geovisualization and cartography
  • Urban and regional planning and analysis
  • Digital remote sensing/drones for mapping and monitoring the environment
  • Water resources management, ecology, and biogeography
  • GIS and society
Name Contact Specialty
Chad Babcock
Assistant Professor
Department of Forest Resources
College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences
cbabcock@umn.edu Remote sensing, forest inventory, geospatial analysis, Bayesian statistics
Jay Bell
Professor
Department of Soil, Water, and Climate
College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences
bellx007@umn.edu Applications of GIScience for pedology and land assessment, digital terrain analysis, soil-landscape modeling
Yao-Yi Chiang
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Science and Engineering
yaoyi@umn.edu Spatial data science and machine learning, spatial artificial intelligence
Emily Fairfax
Assistant Professor
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
efairfax@umn.edu Beaver ecology, ecohydrology, remote sensing and drones, wildlife ecology and management, climate change, ecosystem engineering 
Yingling Fan
Professor
Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
yingling@umn.edu Transportation, web mapping, spatial visualization, community engagement, and equity analyses
Brian Fischer
Vice President
Senior GIS Project Manager
Houston Engineer
fisc0247@umn.edu Web mapping and services
Kathryn Grace
Professor
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
612-625-4026
klgrace@umn.edu
Spatial analysis and statistics, health, demography, food insecurity and population-environment interactions
Catherine Hansen
GIS Support Specialist
MN.IT Services
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
612-301-3932
hansen.catherine@comcast.net 
GIS education, business GIS, spatial analysis
Justin Hansen
Director of GIS Services
WSB & Associates
612-624-1498
hanse893@umn.edu
Web GIS and services, GIS project management, solutions design
David Haynes II
Assistant Professor
Institute for Health Informatics, Medical School
612-624-5818
dahaynes@umn.edu
GIS and big data, spatial analysis, high-performance computing, health and population geography, geospatial data visualization
Andrew Jenks
Teaching Specialist
Department of Forest Resources
College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences
612-624-5317
ajenks@umn.edu
GIS and forest resource management, GPS
Alireza Khani
Associate Professor
Department of Civil, Environmental & Geo-Engineering
College of Science and Engineering
akhani@umn.edu Transportation networks, modeling the impacts of emerging technologies on public transit systems, and spatio-temporal travel behavior
Len Kne
Director, Twin Cities
U-Spatial
612-624-7591
lenkne@umn.edu
Web mapping, spatial database management, and administration
Geoffrey Maas
Senior Geospatial Analyst
Ramsey County
maas0021@umn.edu GIS applications in urban planning, project management, information policy and design, cartography and visualization
Steven Manson
Professor
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
612-625-4577
manson@umn.edu
Agent-based spatial modeling, spatial statistics, and analysis
Jeff Matson
GIS Program Manager
Center for Urban and Regional Affairs
612-625-0081
jmatson@umn.edu
Community-based GIS, urban GIS
Ryan Mattke
Head
John R. Borchert Map Library
612-624-5757
matt0089@umn.edu
Spatial digital humanities, libraries, and technology
Robert McMaster
Professor
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
612-626-9425
mcmaster@umn.edu
Digital cartography and spatial analysis, environmental risk assessment, GIS and society
Susanna McMaster
Co-Director, MGIS
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
612-624-1498
mcmas002@umn.edu
Environmental applications of GIScience, data quality and uncertainty, professional GIScience education
Laura Musacchio
Associate Professor
Department of Landscape Architecture
College of Design
musac003@umn.edu Geodesign, sustainable urban spaces and design, green space systems
Ganapathy Narayanaraj
Lecturer
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts

nara0030@umn.edu

 

 

Integrating field ecology and geospatial technologies to address natural resource conservation and management problems; landscape ecology; human-environment interactions
Bryan Runck
Geocomputing Scientist
GEMS Agroinformatics Initiative
College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences
runck014@umn.edu Geospatial simulation and modeling, spatial artificial intelligence and machine learning, real-time GIS and Internet of things, GIScience applications to food, agriculture, and natural resource sciences
Vasudha Sharma
Assistant Extension Professor
Department of Soil, Water, and Climate
College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences
vasudha@umn.edu Irrigation water management, water and nitrogen fertilizer interactions, crop evapotranspiration, soil-water dynamics, variable-rate irrigation and cover-crop water management
Shashi Shekhar
Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Science and Engineering
612-624-8307
shekhar@umn.edu
Spatial databases, data and knowledge engineering, spatial data mining
Eric Shook
Associate Professor
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
612-625-5970
eshook@umn.edu
CyberGIS, or the study of high-performance computing and GISc, use of large spatial data sets and high-performance computing to engage in innovative spatial analysis and visualization approaches
Ying Song
Associate Professor
Department of Geography
College of Liberal Arts
612-625-2056
yingsong@umn.edu
Time geography, spatio-temporal modeling and analysis, and transportation geography
Stacey Stark
Associate Director, Duluth
U-Spatial
slstark@umn.edu Hazard mitigation planning, project management, K-12 geospatial education
Dan Sward
Senior GIS Manager
University Services
612-624-2110
sward001@umn.edu
GIS project management, facilities management
Peter Wiringa
Geospatial Operations Manager
U-Spatial
wiringa@umn.edu GIS development, web mapping, and spatial databases
Di Zhu
Assistant Professor Department of Geography
612-206-6873
dizhu@umn.edu
Geospatial AI, big geo-data social sensing, spatial prediction models and networks, deep learning, complexity theory, and urban GIS applications