[1] Daw graduated from the University of Florida in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics.
He undertook doctoral study in the subject at the California Institute of Technology, guided by advisers Darryl Smith and Tom McGill.
Upon completing his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1981, Daw worked at the Sandia National Laboratories until 1994, when he began teaching at Clemson.
[3] He was elected a fellow the American Physical Society in 2000, while working at Motorola, "[f]or his original contributions to the atomic scale modeling of the properties of solids, surface, interfaces and defects.
"[5] The American Academy of Arts and Sciences granted Daw an equivalent honor in 2004.