Robert May, Baron May of Oxford

Robert McCredie May, Baron May of Oxford (8 January 1936 – 28 April 2020) was an Australian scientist who was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, President of the Royal Society,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and a professor at the University of Sydney and Princeton University. He held joint professorships at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. He was also a crossbench member of the House of Lords from 2001 until his retirement in 2017.

May was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and an appointed member of the council of the British Science Association. He was also a member of the advisory council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering.<ref name="CaSE Advisory Council">Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life and education

May was born in Sydney on 8 January 1936, to lawyer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Henry Wilkinson May and Kathleen Mitchell (née McCredie),<ref>Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, 148th edition, ed. Charles Kidd, Debrett's Peerage Ltd, 2011, p. 1058</ref><ref>Dod's Parliamentary Companion, Dod's Parliamentary Companion Ltd, ed. Helen Haxell, 2009, p. 766</ref> who divorced when he was seven years old.<ref name=whoswho/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His father was of prosperous middle-class Northern Irish origin, and his mother was the daughter of a Scottish engineer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> May was educated at Sydney Boys High School.<ref name=whoswho/> He then attended the University of Sydney, where he studied chemical engineering and theoretical physics (BSc 1956) and received a PhD in theoretical physics in 1959.<ref name=phd>Template:Cite thesis</ref> He was a patron of the Sydney High School Old Boys Union.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career and research

Career

The logistic map, pictured here, was a seminal discovery by May that demonstrated how even a simple equation could result in chaos.

Early in his career, May developed an interest in animal population dynamics and the relationship between complexity and stability in natural communities.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=googlescholar>Template:Google scholar id</ref> He was able to make major advances in the field of population biology through the application of mathematical techniques. His work played a key role in the development of theoretical ecology through the 1970s and 1980s. He also applied these tools to the study of disease and to the study of biodiversity.

May was Gordon MacKay Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Harvard University (1959–61) and returned to the University of Sydney (1962) as senior lecturer, reader, and professor (1969–72) in theoretical physics. From 1973 until 1988, he was Class of 1977 Professor of Zoology at Princeton University, serving as chairman of the University Research Board 1977Template:Ndash88. From 1988 until 1995, he held a Royal Society Research Professorship jointly at Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, where he became a fellow of Merton College and a Master of Arts.Template:When He was Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government and head of the Office of Science and Technology (1995–2000), and president of the Royal Society (2000–2005).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Public life

May held subsidiary appointments as executive trustee of the Nuffield Foundation, member of the board of the United Kingdom Sports Institute, foundation trustee of the Gates Trust (University of Cambridge), chairman of the board of trustees of the Natural History Museum, trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, independent member of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, trustee of World Wildlife Fund-UK, president of the British Ecological Society, and member of the Committee on Climate Change.

In 1996, May asked Ig Nobel to stop awarding prizes to British scientists because this might lead the public to treat worthwhile research less seriously (see Criticism of Ig Nobel).

Climate change co-operation

Although an atheist since age 11, May stated that religion may help society deal with climate change. While referring to what he believed to be a rigid structure of fundamentalist religion, he stated that the co-operational aspects of non-fundamentalist religion may in fact help with climate change. When asked if religious leaders should be doing more to persuade people to combat climate change, he stated that it was absolutely necessary.<ref>Richard Alleyne, "Maybe religion is the answer" claims-atheist-scientist, The Daily Telegraph, 7 September 2009]</ref> May also estimated that there may be approximately 7 million species present in the Earth, both animal and plant combined.

Awards and honours

May was appointed Knight Bachelor in 1996,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1998. In 2001, on the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, he was created a life peer. He was one of the first fifteen peers to be elevated in this manner. After his initial preference for "Baron May of Woollahra" failed an objection from the Protocol Office of the Australian Prime Minister's Department, he chose the style and title Baron May of Oxford, of Oxford in the County of Oxfordshire.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref>Annabel Crabb, Good Lord, he said what?,The Sunday Age, 20 November 2005</ref> He was made a member of the Order of Merit in 2002.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1979. He became a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1991, a Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1992,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2001,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a member of the Academia Europaea in 1994, and Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2005 he was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.<ref name="List of Fellows"/> In 2009 Lord May became only the 7th ever Honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of Building (HonFAIB).<ref>The first six honorary fellows of the Australian Institute of Building (HonFAIB) are: HRH Prince Philip, Sir Eric Neil AC CVO, Janet Holmes a'Court AC, James Service AO, Sir Laurence Street AC KCMG QC, and Sir John Holland AC [vale]. Subsequent appointments are Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO and Dr Kenneth Michael AC. Template:Cite web</ref> He received honorary degrees from universities including Uppsala<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>(1990), Yale (1993), Sydney (1995), Princeton (1996), and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (2003). He was awarded the Weldon Memorial Prize by the University of Oxford (1980), an Award by the MacArthur Foundation (1984), the Medal of the Linnean Society of London (1991), the Marsh Christian Prize (1992), the Frink Medal by the Zoological Society of London (1995), the Crafoord Prize (1996), the Balzan Prize (1998) for Biodiversity and the Copley Medal by the Royal Society (2007) and the Lord Lewis Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry (2008).<ref name="Lord Lewis Prize 2008 e625">Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

During his postdoctoral research at the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University as Gordon MacKay Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, between 1959 and 1961, May met his wife, Judith Feiner,<ref name=whoswho/> a native of Manhattan.<ref name="AAS">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>May, Robert McCredie (2001) Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems, Princeton University Press Template:ISBN</ref> The Mays had a daughter, Naomi.<ref name="AAS"/>

May died at a nursing home in Oxford of pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer's disease on 28 April 2020, aged 84.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• List of presidents of the Royal Society

External links

• Profile of Robert May: the Recipient of the 2001 Blue Planet Prize
• Bush Accused of "Fiddling While World Burns" by Ignoring Climate Change
• A commentary on Robert May's request to Ignobel by The Guardian
• Speech made at the end of Lord May's presidency of the Royal Society
• Audio: Robert May in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The Forum
• Template:YouTube
• The Australian Institute of Building
• abel.harvard.edu
• Bob May: the government scientist with a colourful turn of phrase (Sydney Morning Herald obituary)