The Lab
Saint Louis University’s Stupp Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab has been restructured and brought under the direction of the newly-formed Office for Community and Social Research (OCSR), housed within the College of Education and Public Service (CEPS). This enables the lab to serve the university and regional community in wider and more effective ways through expanded intellectual and technological capacities, including:

• Dedicated full-time professional research staff with experience in GIS, statistics, database resources, and project management working closely with faculty and students in Public Policy Studies, Education, Social Work, and Couseling and Family Therapy and in collaboration with schools and colleges across the university including Public Health, Sociology and Criminal Justice, Law and in-house Law Clinics.

• An understanding of current issues facing our region - including home mortgage foreclosures, demographic shifts, health concerns, environmental and social sustainability, elementary and secondary education, etc - and how current technology, methods, and data can help lead to better outcomes

• Lab staff are able to apply GIS and analytical tools and methods in a way that is vital to decision-making through serving as an up-to-date regional data resource for ever-changing demographic, economic, housing, and education data that serve as indicators of neighborhood and regional trends and progress

• A commitment to “democratizing” public data and its applications by making academic caliber expertise available to governments, nonprofits, and community groups through the provision of detailed maps, spatial analysis, and data.

The Lab is located on the first floor of Litteken Hall at Saint Louis University. Click here for a map.

GIS Courses / GIS Certificate
Offered by the Department of Public Policy Studies at Saint Louis University, in cooperation with the Stupp GIS Laboratory, these graduate-level GIS courses will prepare students to apply GIS tools to their research and work in the social sciences. Students may work toward the entire GIS Certificate or simply take a course or two as electives.

The 15-hour Certificate program includes the following courses:
• PPS-435 / PPS-535 Introduction to GIS: Computer-Assisted Cartography
• PPS-537 Intermediate GIS: Spatial Modeling and Analysis
• PPS-538 Advanced GIS
• PPS-536 Science, Technology and Public Policy
• PPS 586 Capstone

For more information about studying GIS in the SLU College of Education and Public Service, visit the official program page or e-mail Public Policy Studies Department Chair Dr. Robert Cropf or OCSR GIS Coordinator Rob Ryan.