Career , pictured here, was a seminal discovery by May that demonstrated how even a simple equation could result in
chaos.|alt=|left Early in his career, May developed an interest in animal
population dynamics and the relationship between complexity and stability in
natural communities. 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 197788. 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. 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).
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. 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, 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. He was made a member of the
Order of Merit in 2002. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977 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, a member of the
American Philosophical Society in 2001, a member of the
Academia Europaea in 1994, and Fellow of the
Royal Society of New South Wales in 2010. In 2005 he was appointed an Honorary
Fellow of the
Royal Academy of Engineering. He received honorary degrees from universities including
Uppsala(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). ==Personal life==