Donald William Rawson joined the Australian National University in December 1957 as a Research Fellow in the Department of Political Sciences. He was promoted to Fellow in July 1960 and in 1961 resigned to begin a Readership in Political Science at the University of Queensland. He rejoined the ANU as Senior Research Fellow in 1964 and was then made Senior Fellow in 1965. In May 1989 Rawson became the first Associate Director of the Research School of Social Sciences, retaining the position until 1992 when he returned to full-time academic work as a Senior Fellow in the Division of Historical Studies. He retired in 1995. Rawson died on 20 June 1997 in Canberra.