Shashi Shekhar, a McKnight Distinguished University Professor at the University of Minnesota and an U.C. Berkeley alumnus, is a leading scholar of spatial computing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He is serving on the Computing Research Association (CRA) board, and as a co-Editor-in-Chief of Geo-Informatica journal (Springer). Earlier, he served as the President of the University Consortium for GIS (UCGIS), and on many National Academies' committees. Recognitions include IEEE-CS Technical Achievement Award, UCGIS Education Award, IEEE Fellow and AAAS Fellow. Contributions include algorithms for evacuation route planning and spatial pattern (e.g., colocation, linear hotspots) mining, an Encyclopedia of GIS and a Spatial Databases textbook.