Eric Shook

Eric Shook is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment & Society at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His work bridges geographic information science (GIScience) and computational science, with focus areas including cyberGIS, geoAI, and geospatial data science. He leads curriculum development in geospatial computing and advocates for advancing geospatial literacy through educational initiatives.

• Education:
  • B.S. in Computer Science, University of Northern Iowa, 2005
  • M.S. and Ph.D. in Geography, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2010–2013)

His research emphasizes foundational geospatial computing advancements applied to diverse domains, such as human origins studies, disease outbreak risk perception, and extreme weather analysis using social media data. He actively develops cyberinfrastructure tools like GISandbox, a science gateway for geospatial computing, and has pioneered initiatives like the Hour of Cyberinfrastructure to enhance cyber literacy in GIScience education.

Publications reflect his commitment to integrating computational methods with geospatial challenges, spanning topics from generative models (TopoSinGAN) to high-performance raster analysis. He has collaborated on projects such as the Taghreed System and contributed to Terra Populus’ big data architecture.

Teaching focuses on geospatial computing, cyberGIS, and GIScience education, with emphasis on curriculum innovation and Jupyter notebook-based interactive learning. His work addresses societal challenges through interdisciplinary approaches, linking technology, environment, and human behavior.