John F. May, PhD

For more than four decades, John May has dedicated his career to demography, population policy, and illuminating these areas of focus to future generations. Since 2020, he has utilized his skills and experience as a research professor at George Mason University. He also is a Senior Fellow with The Population Institute, a role he has inhabited since 2018. Prior to joining the faculty at George Mason University, Dr. May taught as an adjunct professor with Georgetown University from 2008 to 2017, and was a visiting scholar for the Population Reference Bureau from 2013 to 2017. He spent a year as a visiting fellow for the Center for Global Development in Washington D.C.

Dr. May garnered field experience in demography and population policy with myriad roles. Such roles include being the Lead Population Specialist (Open-Ended) for the Africa Region for the World Bank, as well as the Co-Coordinator for the World Bank Population and Reproductive Health Thematic Group, and as a Senior Scientists for The Futures Group International. From 1991 to 1992, he served as the Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Scholar for the Population Reference Bureau. Dr. May served as the UN Adviser on Demography and Population Statistics for the South Pacific Commission, as well as the UN Associate Expert in Demography for the Institut Haïtien de Statistique et d’Informatique. In the earliest moments of his career, Dr. May served as a high school teacher for various high schools in Brussels, Belgium, and as a research assistant for the Catholic University of Louvain.

Dr. May was inspired to go into his field by a college professor he had while studying in Belgium. He first earned a Bachelor of Arts in modern history, cum laude, from the University Saint-Louis before receiving a Master of Arts in demography, magna cum laude, from the Catholic University of Louvain in 1985. In 1996, Dr. May earned a PhD in demography, summa cum laude, from the Université René Descartes – Paris V Sorbonne. Looking toward the future, he intends to write a handbook on population policy.