Dr. Malcolm LeCompte

Malcolm A. LeCompte, Professional Biography

Dr. Malcolm A. LeCompte graduated from New York University in 1969 with a B.S, in Aeronautical and Astronautical Sciences.  From 1970 to 1974, he served on active duty with the U.S. Navy as a Naval Flight Officer. In 1978, after active duty, LeCompte, earned a second Batchelor of Science with honors in Physics at the University of Wyoming.  He then attended the University of Colorado in Boulder as a post graduate student in the Department of Astro-geophysics.  He received a MS in Astro-geophysics in 1980 and his Ph.D. in Astrophysical, Planetary and Atmospheric Sciences in 1984.  His doctoral dissertation described his analysis of Pioneer Venus Orbiter ultraviolet spectrometer data pertaining to natural chemical and dynamic processes occurring in the upper atmosphere of Venus. His research was performed at the University’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. After receiving his Ph.D., he accepted a post-doctoral appointment at the Harvard College Observatory and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts to study orbiting spacecraft glow. 

In 1980, while in graduate school LeCompte affiliated with the U. S. Naval Air Reserve, retiring in 1998 as a Commander.

In mid-1986, LeCompte took a position as a systems analyst with Aerodyne Research Inc. in Billerica, Massachusetts performing aircraft infrared signature and phenomenological analysis and managing a variety of related DoD sponsored aerospace-related research and development projects.

In 1994, LeCompte left Aerodyne to devote the next decade to an entrepreneurial effort to develop a commercial satellite remote sensing company: AstroVision International, Inc. (AVII)

In 2004, he departed AVII to take a position as Associate Professor of Mathematics and Research Director at Elizabeth City State University’s Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research (CERSER). LeCompte officially retired from ECSU in 2009, although, he continues to work with the ECSU CERSER program in his spare time.

Since 2008, LeCompte has focused his research on investigating earth impacts during the late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs by asteroid and comets.  He is currently working in collaboration with colleagues at ECSU and other research organizations, as a field and laboratory investigator, and co-director of the Comet Research Group.  To date, LeCompte, with colleagues, has made three field trips to Jordan to obtain soil samples from within and around the Tall el Hammam ruin. 

In addition to the Tall el Hammam paper, LeCompte has authored or coauthored more than a dozen peer-reviewed research papers, most of which have dealt with cosmic impacts. He has authored or coauthored a similar number of scientific treatises and classified DoD technical reports.