Robert McCredie "Bob" May, Baron May of Oxford, OM, AC, FRS (born 8 January 1936 in Australia) is a cross-bench member of the British House of Lords and was President of the Royal Society from 2000 to 2005. He was knighted in 1996, made a life peer in 2001 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 2002.

A physicist by training, he won the Crafoord Prize for "pioneering ecological research in theoretical analysis of the dynamics of populations, communities and ecosystems" and the Robert H. MacArthur Award in 1984. He holds professorships in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford and in Imperial College London.

May received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from University of Sydney in 1959. He then worked at Harvard University and the University of Sydney before developing an interest in animal population dynamics and the relationship between complexity and stability in natural communities. He moved to Princeton University in 1973 and to Oxford and Imperial College in 1988. May 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.

Between 1995 and 2000, May was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and head of the Office of Science and Technology.

In 1996, May asked Ignobel to stop awarding prizes to British scientists on the basis that this could lead to treating a proper research less seriously by the public. See criticism of Ignobel.

Books

• Nowak, M.A. R.M. May. 2000. Virus Dynamics: the Mathematical Foundations of Immunology and Virology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198504187
• Magurran, A.E. and R.M. May (eds.). 1999. Evolution of Biological Diversity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198503040
• Lawton, J.H. and R.M. May (eds.). 1995. Extinction Rates. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019854829X
• Edwards, P.J., R.M. May, N.R. Webb (eds.). 1994. Large Scale Ecology and Conservation Biology. Blackwell Scientific Publishers. ISBN 0865428018
• Anderson, R.M. and R.M. May. 1991. Infectious Diseases of Humans: Transmission and Control. Oxford University Press.ISBN 019854040X
• Hassell, M.P. and R.M. May (eds.). 1990. Population Regulation and Dynamics. Cambridge University Press.
• Roughgarden, J., R.M. May and S.A. Levin. 1989. Perspectives in Ecological Theory. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691085080
• May, R.M. (ed.). 1984. Exploitation of Marine communities : report of the Dahlem Workshop on Exploitation of Marine Communities, Berlin, April 1-6, 1984. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3540150285
• Anderson, R.M. and R.M. May. (eds.). 1982. Population Biology of Infectious Diseases. Springer-Verlag ISBN 0387116508
• May, R.M. (ed.). 1976 (and 1981). Theoretical Ecology: Principles and Applications. Blackwell Scientific Publishers. ISBN 0632007680
• May, R.M. 1973. Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691081255. (re-issued with a retrospective introduction in the Princeton Landmarks in Biology series, 2000)