Iain McCalman migrated to Australia after he finished school. He studied at the Australian National University, Canberra and at Monash University in Victoria. He was appointed Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University in 1995 and Professor in History in 1996.
A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, and the Royal Historical Society (United Kingdom), McCalman was also an Australian Federation Fellow at the Australian National University and President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
McCalman's Darwin's Armada (2009) was shortlisted for the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction in the 2009 Victorian Premier's Awards; won the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Non-Fiction Award 2009 and in 2010 was shortlisted for the Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Award for Non-Fiction.