Since 2020, Dr. John F. May has thrived as a research professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Concurrent to this position, he has also served as an emeritus professor at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, since 2021. Possessing approximately five decades of excellence within the fields of education, research and population studies, Dr. May is well regarded in his profession.
Prior to commencing his present positions, Dr. May served as a population specialist and long-term consultant in the Africa region of the World Bank, which also included tenures as the co-coordinator of the World Bank Population and Reproductive Health Thematic Group. Following these appointments, he was a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, visiting scholar at the Population Reference Bureau and a senior fellow at the Population Institute in Washington, D.C. Likewise, Dr. May spent significant time in academia and the sciences, having served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a senior associate and senior scientist at the Future Group International, and a population training coordinator at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Populations.
Furthermore, Dr. May excelled in a myriad of roles across the globe, such as a United Nations advisor on demography and population statistics for the South Pacific Commission in New Caledonia and associate expert in demography at the Haitian Institute of Statistics in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Lending his expertise to academia as well, he previously served as an educator in Brussels, Belgium, and served his alma mater, the Catholic University of Louvain, as a research assistant.
Dr. May holds several advanced degrees, having studied extensively in Europe. In Belgium, he received a Bachelor of Arts in modern history, cum laude, and a Master of Arts in demography, magna cum laude, from the Catholic University of Louvain in 1973 and 1985, respectively. One decade later, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy in demography from Paris Descartes University in 1996, where he notably graduated summa cum laude. Likewise, Dr. May holds a graduate diploma in demography from 1975. Over the course of his laudable career, he has also attended conferences and symposia, where he often served as a keynote speaker and presenter. Likewise, he has authored and co-authored a myriad of books, book chapters, articles to professional journals and op-eds. He has further been featured on many podcasts.
In light of his exceptional undertakings, Dr. May received the Global Media Award for best book in population for his book “World Population Policies: Their Origin, Evolution and Impact” in 2012. To wit, he has also earned numerous World Bank Spot Awards, the Chief Economist’s Best Practice Award from the World Bank Africa Region and the Good Practice ICR Quality Award for the Gambia HIV/AIDS Rapid Response Project ICR. Looking toward the future, Dr. May is completing a handbook on population policy, having just finished a small book on the demography of Africa that will be published in English, French and Italian.
