Rachel May

Senator May is a chair of the Cities 2 committee and a co-chair of the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources. She is a member of the Aging, Agriculture, Elections, Environmental Conservation, Health, Housing, Construction and Community Development, and the State-Native American Relations committees. She also serves on the Legislative Women's Caucus.

Before running for public office, May was a professor of Russian language and literature at Stony Brook University, where she was a proud member of UUP, before earning tenure at Macalester College. She moved to Syracuse in 2001 and retrained in ecology and sustainability, becoming director of sustainability education at Syracuse University. May earned a Master’s degree from Oxford University on a Marshall Scholarship and a Ph.D. in Russian language and literature from Stanford University. She also earned a master’s degree from SUNY-ESF.