Biography: Born in Michigan but raised a Hoosier, Dr. Shortridge enjoyed geography from an early age. He took computer cartography in his 4th (but not final!) year of undergraduate studies at Indiana University and realized that GIS would be his professional passion. He spent the last half of the 1990s on a beach in Santa Barbara obtaining his Masters and Doctoral degrees in Geography, but was happy to move back to the Midwest to join the MSU Geography Department in January, 2001. Since then his professional life has been devoted to developing multiple GIScience degree programs at MSU, teaching cutting-edge GIS and spatial analysis courses, and conducting and communicating research on a range of thematic and methodologically-oriented projects. Dr. Shortridge is married, with three wonderful girls, so family time is a priority. True to his Indiana roots, he also maintains a fine basketball goal out back.

Research Interests: My general interests are in the realm of geographic information science, spatial analysis, and health geography. I focus on five particular areas:
- digital representation of terrain
- spatial data uncertainty models
- error propagation and GIS
- digital geomorphology
- health geography

E-mail: ashton@msu.edu
Website: http://www.msu.edu/~ashton
Phone: 517-432-3561
Fax: 517-432-1671

Office:
235 Geography Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1117