Shashi is serving as the Director of a National AI Research Institute, namely, AI-CLIMATE, an Associate Director of his college's Data Science Initiative, a co-Editor-in-Chief of Geo-Informatica journal (Springer), and a general co-chair of the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (2024). Earlier, he served as the President of the University Consortium for GIS (UCGIS), and on the Computing Research Association (CRA) board as well as many National Academies' committees including Models of the World for USDOD-NGA (2015), Geo-targeted Disaster Alerts and Warning (2013), Future Work-force for Geospatial Intelligence (2011), Mapping Sciences (2004-2009) and Priorities for GEOINT Research (2004-2005).
In 1990s, Shashi's research developed roadmap storage and routing methods, which have revolutionized outdoor navigation. His evacuation route planning algorithms were used for homeland security and received many recognitions including the UMN CTS Award for significant impact on transportation. His recent research is analyzing spatial big data to recommend eco-routes to reduce emissions and energy use. He also pioneered spatial data mining research area via pattern families (e.g. colocation), keynotes, surveys and workshops.
Shashi's 350+ publications include a popular textbook on Spatial Databases (Prentice Hall, 2003), an authoritative Encyclopedia of GIS (Springer, 2017) and a spatial computing book for broad audience. Many of Shashi's 100 advisees are serving in leadership positions and have received prestigious recognitions such as the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers and NSF CAREER.
Shashi received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of California (Berkeley, CA). More details are available from http://www.cs.umn.edu/~shekhar.