Baron Robert McCredie May
- Born
- 8 January 1936
Australian-born Robert May is a theoretical ecologist and professor at Oxford and Imperial College London. He has also help posts as the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government, been the president of the Royal Society and is a crossbencher in the House of Lords.
May's education in Sydney saw him become an expert in the field of physics, eventually leading to him earning his PhD in theoretical physics in 1959. This did not take him down the typical route you would expect of a physicist however. At the very beginnings of his career he found a passion in the dynamics, complexity, and stability of natural communities and animal populations.
He dedicated the rest of his career to applying mathematical models to try and explain the relationships between many aspects of ecological systems, such as their dynamics. This even evolved into the study of disease and biodiversity through mathematics.
Robert’s innovative and forward-thinking work has taken him all over the world and landed him many prestigious and sought-after honours. Over in the states he was a lecturer at Harvard University and as luck would have it, this is also where he met his wife. Not quite finished with the USA, he was also became Professor of Zoology at Princeton University before coming to the UK. In the UK he held a joint Royal Society Research Professorship between the University of Oxford and Imperial College London and became the Royal Society’s president in 2000.
He has really established himself in Britain, where he now resides permanently. On top of the above mentioned achievements, he has also been on the board of trustees for the Natural History Museum, World Wildlife Fund UK, and Royal Botanic Gardens, to name a few.
A surprising twist from the self-proclaimed atheist occurred when he said that religion would be the great driving force behind tackling climate change. He believes that religious leaders are not doing enough to encourage positive thinking and behaviours to slow man-made global warming and ecosystem destruction.
Even at the age of 79, it looks like May is in no mood for slowing down. He is currently a crossbencher in the House of Lords and a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering. So while his impact on the science community and science as a whole has been huge, there yet may be more to come.