Michael May, professor emeritus, honored with Joseph A. Burton Forum Award
Michael May, professor emeritus, has been awarded the 2014 Joseph A. Burton Forum Award by the American Physical Society. May was honored “for his significant and sustained contributions to technical and policy issues pertaining to nuclear weapons, nuclear terrorism, energy and environmental impact; for mentoring generations of students and colleagues on these issues; and for efforts to increase public understanding and awareness on these issues.”
May is Professor Emeritus (Research) of Economic Systems and Operations Research (now part of Management Science and Engineering) and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. He is the former co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team and a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. He has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission among other awards.
The Joseph A. Burton Forum Award, which includes $3,000 and an invitation to speak at the presentation ceremony, recognizes outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society. The 2014 award will be presented at the APS April meeting in Savannah, Ga.
