After graduating from Stanford, he worked at San Jose State University as an assistant professor of geology. In 1958 he accepted a position as an assistant professor of geology with an emphasis in structural geology at Columbia University to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Walter Hermann Bucher.[6] In 1962, Donath received a research grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a geophysics lab at Columbia University; he was also promoted to associate professor.[7] He left Columbia later in the 1960s to accept a position as head of the Department of Geology at the University of Illinois; he was head of the department for eleven years until 1977, after which he remained a professor of geology. In 1978 he testified before the US Congress regarding geologic considerations in radioactive waste.[8]
He was the founding editor of the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, which was established in 1973. He was succeeded as editor by George Wetherill in 1981.[9] In 1980, he left the University of Illinois to form his own consulting firm, CGS Inc.[10] Later in the 1980s, he sold CGS to a California-based company, Earthtec, and started working for them as vice president for research.[11] He then created an endowed award for young scientists with the Geological Society of America known as the Donath Medal.[12]
