Team Leader, Space Science, Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department, Office of Naval Research

Dr. McCoy is the team leader for the Space Science Team within the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department. Dr. McCoy manages an interdisciplinary team of scientists funding science and technology, in three research areas: space environment research; precision time, time interval (PTTI) and astrometry; and tactical space demonstrations. His program includes basic and applied research funding in academia, government laboratories and industry. The space science element of the program funds basic research in solar physics, ionospheric and thermospheric physics with emphasis on remote sensing, specification and forecast of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Goals of the program include development of improved techniques for remote sensing, improved understanding of ionospheric, and development of a new type of ionospheric model based on assimilation of space-based data with basic physics models. Dr. McCoy is the program manager for the Tactical Space Innovative Naval Prototype program which funds the development and spaceflight of microsatellites to demonstrate new warfighting capabilities in space for the Navy.

Dr. McCoy began federal service in 1981 as a captain, U. S. Army Ordnance Officer, assigned to the Naval Research Laboratory as a Science Liaison Officer. In 1985 he became a civil servant research physicist with the Navy and led a team of scientists and engineers to build sounding rockets and satellite instruments to study the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. He was principal investigator (PI) on several NASA sponsored sounding rocket investigations of the upper atmosphere and cometary atmospheres. He was PI for the development and flight of more than 20 satellite ultraviolet remote sensing instruments. In the 90’s he lead a team of more than a dozen scientists and engineers to develop operational ultraviolet instruments for flight on five of the next Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. In 1995 Dr. McCoy came to ONR to manage the space environment research program. At ONR he sponsored the development of the Global Assimilation of Ionospheric Measurements (GAIM) model which is currently transitioning into operations at the Air Force Weather Agency.

Dr. McCoy received his A.B. in Physics from Cornell University in 1974, his M. S. in Physics from Texas A&M in 1976 and his Ph.D. in Astro-Geophysics from the University of Colorado in 1981. Dr. McCoy is the author on more than 60 publications in scientific and technical journals.

In 1998 Dr. McCoy received the NRL 75 th Anniversary Innovator Award and has received the Alan Berman Publication Award in 1994, 2001. NRL Group Achievement Award 1983 and the NASA Group Achievement Award in 2004.