Do you utilize your cellphone’s map app to discover the quickest route across the metropolis? Have you opened the ASU map to find a constructing? Or puzzled how a college the dimension of ASU makes use of knowledge to assist every day operations?
These questions share a means of understanding the world via location. Geographic information systems, or GIS, connect maps with knowledge to assist folks perceive locations, patterns and choices.
At ASU, GIS helps college students, researchers, college and employees flip complicated information into sensible instruments.
More than 13,000 tutorial and administrative customers across ASU have entry to ArcGIS tools, creating an enterprise-scale platform for spatial evaluation, collaboration and real-time information.
That campuswide use of GIS has earned ASU a 2026 Esri Special Achievement in GIS Award for Higher Education. Presented throughout the Esri User Conference in San Diego, the award acknowledges ASU’s use of GIS know-how across educating, analysis, operations and public service.
Esri, the firm behind ArcGIS mapping and spatial analytics software program, presents the award to organizations round the world utilizing GIS in modern methods. ASU’s recognition displays work across the college, the place spatial pondering connects folks, knowledge and place.
Rather than treating GIS as a device for one self-discipline, ASU has constructed a geospatial ecosystem supporting educating, analysis, operations, resilience planning, broadband fairness, environmental evaluation and public-facing instruments.
“GIS is about understanding the value of location,” said Wellington “Duke” Reiter, particular adviser to the ASU president and government director of Ten Across and University City Exchange. “Demonstrating a powerful correspondence between ASU’s New American University mannequin and Esri’s intense concentrate on the points of ‘where,’ the first of our design aspirations is a dedication to Leveraging Our Place, together with bodily, cultural and socioeconomic attributes.
“Achieving this goal is obviously benefited greatly by the use of GIS tools.”
From the classroom to the neighborhood
At the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, GIS is central to getting ready college students to ask higher questions on the “where” behind challenges.
Through the Geographic Information Science BS, GIS certificate program and Master of Advanced Study in Geographic Information Systems, college students construct abilities in GIS software program, spatial knowledge evaluation, programming and knowledge communication.
“Our faculty helped shape this field and bring that expertise into the classroom through award-winning instruction, both online and in person,” stated Andrew Trgovac, GIS program coordinator. “We stay closely connected to GIS professionals so the curriculum keeps pace with where the field is actually going, whether that’s AI assistants, digital twins or web- and cloud-based mapping. Our goal is for our students to leave ASU prepared for the job market and the career they want.”
The identical instruments college students study at school assist decision-making across ASU. Campus groups use GIS to analyze utilities, amenities and providers, serving to employees coordinate upkeep and operations across ASU campus places.
“ASU uses GIS to establish a unified geospatial foundation for managing campus infrastructure,” stated Joseph Gregory, director of geographic information systems with Business and Finance Support Services. “This institutional effort supports the university’s vision for a smarter, more connected, resilient and operationally intelligent campus. By leveraging GIS as the enterprise spatial backbone, ASU is building the foundation for a fully spatially enabled campus ecosystem capable of supporting future innovation, sustainability and smart campus evolution.”
GIS additionally helps ASU researchers and neighborhood companions flip knowledge into motion. Recent GIS initiatives embody:
“ASU uses GIS to enhance research and provide solutions to real-world problems,” stated Shiloh Johnson, senior venture supervisor with ASU Geospatial Research and Solutions. “This work extends past teachers, supporting the college’s personal operations whereas working with companions to handle native, regional and international challenges.”