Maxwell Frank Cooper Day

Maxwell Frank Cooper Day (21 December 1915 – 31 July 2017) was an Australian ecologist and the oldest living Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Born in Sydney, New South Wales, he turned 100 in December 2015. He is well known for his work on myxomatosis and the myxoma virus in the 1940s in conjunction with Professor Frank Fenner.

Day studied science at the University of Sydney, graduating BSc and being awarded the university medal in 1937. He completed a PhD at Harvard in 1941 as a Lehman Fellow, and worked for the Australian Government in Washington DC where he joined CSIRO in 1944. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1956. By sponsoring this award, Dr. Day recognized the support he received as a young researcher.