Malcolm L. Comeaux served as Professor of Geography, Arizona State University from 1969-2001. His scholarly specialties include cultural diffusion and change, historical geography, geography of Europe, history of geographic thought, geography of Arizona and the Southwest, the French of Louisiana and geographic education. He published widely on Cajun material culture, society and economy, cemetery landscapes and post-death removal of human remains. He authored "Atchafalaya Swamp Life: Settlement" and "Folk Occupations and Arizona: A Geography."
He devoted years of action, energy and loyalty to the establishment of the School of Geographical Sciences as an international center for geographic learning.Beyond his considerable accomplishments in research and teaching, his greatest institutional legacy may be his founding and leading the Arizona Geographic Alliance, a K-12 educational outreach initiative that has significantly enhanced the teaching of geography and enriched the lives of thousands of Arizona's school children and teachers.
Building and strengthening the Geography community in Arizona has been a life long passion for Malcolm. His steadfast support of scholarly gatherings has included weekly school colloquia, the school forum, brown bag series, invited lectures across campus, professional meetings and educator conferences. The School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University has chosen to honor Professor Comeaux's 32 years of service and dedication to the dissemination of new geographic knowledge by establishing the Malcolm L. Comeaux Lecture Fund to support an annual public lecture at ASU by a leading geographer. This endowment was established in 2001 and provides support in perpetuity to bring a distinguished scholar to the ASU campus each year to speak to a broad audience of faculty, students, alumni and friends of the department on exciting new directions in geography.
This lecture fund honors Malcolm Comeaux's work as a scholar, teacher and institution builder.