Dr. Michael May

Dr. May is co-director, emeritus, for the Center for International Security and Arms Control. A native of France, received his BA in physics and mathematics from Whitman College in 1944; served for two years in the US Army from 1944 to 1946; and received his Ph. D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1952. He spent most of his career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, serving as Director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. His research work there centered on nuclear explosion theory; nuclear weapons design; radiation transfer; astrophysics and general relativity. In addition to research and administrative positions, Prof. May taught graduate science courses for several years in the Department of Applied Science at Livermore, a part of the School of Engineering of the University of California at Davis. In the eighties, Prof. May designed and managed an in-house advanced research program at the laboratory structured to provide opportunities for research into new areas of relevance in the Department of Energy's main areas of responsibility. He retired from the Laboratory in 1988.

Starting in 1972, Prof. May became involved in strategic arms control, first through committees reviewing the ability of the US to verify compliance with the provisions of arms control treaties, then as a member of negotiating teams. May served as a Technical Representative on the Threshold Test Ban Treaty Negotiating Team in Moscow, USSR, June-July 1974, then as a Member of the US Delegation to SALT, in Geneva, Switzerland, September 1974-May 1976. He has continued to work on arms control through advisory committees to government and through his own academic publications.

Prof. May was a member of the Defense Science Board, the principal advisory body to the Secretary of Defense on technical matters, from 1971 through 1978 and a Senior Consultant to the Board since. He has been a member of numerous other government advisory groups, chairing studies for the Department of Defense on the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons systems, the utility of lasers in space, and other matters. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control from 1985 to 1995, where he chaired or was a member of study groups which published studies on the future levels of nuclear weapons and on the disposition of excess plutonium from retired nuclear weapons.

Prof. May received the Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Award in 1979; its Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 1975; the Atomic Energy Commission's Ernest Orlando Lawrence Memorial Award in 1970; and the Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from Whitman College in 1976.