Dr David Day was a visiting fellow at the National Centre of Biography in 2014. He is a prolific historian and has taught in universities in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Japan. Most recently, his international history of Antarctica was published in Australia by Random House in 2012, by Oxford University Press in Britain and the United States, and will soon be published in China. In 2013 his book, Flaws in the Ice: In Search of Douglas Mawson, was published by Scribe and will this year be published in Britain and the U.S.

In terms of biography  he has written prize-winning biographies of former prime ministers, John Curtin (1999), Ben Chifley (2001) and Andrew Fisher (2008) and is currently writing a biography of Paul Keating. In 2009 he was the Seymour Biography Lecturer, giving a paper on 'Writing Political Lives: Curtin, Chifley, Fisher.'  While a visiting fellow at the ANU he gave a number of papers: 'Triumph and Tragedy: Douglas Mawson in Antarctica' to the School of History seminar; 'Writing Paul Keating' to the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch; and 'Writing Australian Prime Ministers as Children' to the NCB's Biography Workshop series.