Morgan May received his A.B. from Columbia College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in particle physics, with thesis advisor Leon Lederman. He joined the faculty of the Physics Department in 1982.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society with citation in Astrophysics.
He initiated and led the cosmology and astrophysics program at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He also led the Nuclear Physics Group, Medium Energy, at Brookhaven.