John May holds a Master in Demographics from the Catholic University of Leuven, which he later completed with a PhD at the University of Paris-V in 1996. He has devoted most of his career to studying population policies: demographics, development, family planning programs, with both operational and academic positions. He notably worked for the United Nations (UNFPA, UNICEF...) in Haiti from 1976 to 1979, then in New Caledonia, prior to returning to Belgium for a few years at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. In 1987, he went to Washington, where he worked successively for Futures Group International, the World Bank and the Center for Global Development. In 2012, he joined the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) as a Visiting Scholar. He is also an associate professor at Georgetown University and an associate member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.