Andrew Dobson/EEB
ROBERT M. MAY, Lord May of Oxford and a former professor and administrator at Princeton, died April 28 in Oxford, England. He was 84. May, who trained as a physicist but transitioned to pioneering work in theoretical ecology, joined the faculty in 1972 and chaired the University Research Board. Edward Tenner ’65, in a memorial for Scientific American, described May as brash and competitive but beloved for his candor and unpretentiousness. After departing for the University of Oxford in 1988, May served as the chief scientific adviser to the U.K. government and president of the Royal Society. He received an honorary doctorate from Princeton in 1996 and was awarded the Copley Medal, the Royal Society’s highest honor, in 2007. 


Amy Baxter-Bellamy/ University of Pennsylvania
JOHN M. MURRIN, a history professor who published scores of essays exploring American Colonial and Revolutionary history, died May 2 of complications from COVID-19. He was 84. Murrin co-wrote the popular American history textbook Liberty, Equality, Power and taught at Princeton for 30 years, transferring to emeritus status in 2003. He chaired the coordinating committee of the Princeton-based Papers of Thomas Jefferson. His final book, Rethinking America: From Empire to Republic, published in 2018, collected essays about the American Revolution, the Constitution, and the early republic. 


Bo Smith
THOMAS ROCHE JR., the Murray Professor of English, emeritus, died May 3 in Beachwood, Ohio, at age 89. Roche, who joined the faculty in 1961, specialized in epic and Renaissance poetry and was a leading scholar of 16th-century poet Edmund Spenser. He mentored colleagues in his more than four decades on the English faculty and shared his love of Shakespeare with students by participating in productions of the Princeton Shakespeare Company. 


Sameer A. Khan
HANNA HAND, whose work as a staff member and volunteer at the Davis International Center spanned more than 45 years, died April 27 from complications related to COVID-19. She was 85. Hand helped to pair international students and scholars with host families and assisted spouses and partners in adjusting to life at Princeton