David A. Evans (January 11, 1941 – April 29, 2022) was an American chemist who was the Abbott and James Lawrence professor of chemistry at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. He was a prominent figure in the field of

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

and his research focused on

synthetic chemistry Chemical synthesis (chemical combination) is the artificial execution of chemical reactions to obtain one or several products. This occurs by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions. In modern laboratory uses ...

and

total synthesis Total synthesis, a specialized area within organic chemistry, focuses on constructing complex organic compounds, especially those found in nature, using laboratory methods. It often involves synthesizing natural products from basic, commercially ...

, particularly of large biologically active molecules. Among his best-known works is the development of

aldol reaction The aldol reaction (aldol addition) is a Chemical reaction, reaction in organic chemistry that combines two Carbonyl group, carbonyl compounds (e.g. aldehydes or ketones) to form a new β-hydroxy carbonyl compound. Its simplest form might invol ...

methodology (for example, Evans' acyl oxazolidinone method).

Early life and education

Evans was born on January 11, 1941, in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

He received his

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

in 1963, where he worked with Norman Craig. He began his graduate work at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

with Robert E. Ireland, but moved with the Ireland group to the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

and received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1967.

Academic career

Evans began his independent research career at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

, where he joined the faculty in 1967 and became a

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

in 1973. He then moved to the

and remained there until 1983, when he moved again to

. He was appointed the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry in 1990, served as chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology from 1995 to 1998, and retired from the faculty, assuming

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

status, in 2008.

Research

Evans made many scholarly contributions to the field of organic chemistry. Although he is best known for his work on the aldol reaction, he also developed methodology for

anionic An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

oxy-Cope rearrangements, metal catalyzed

hydroboration In organic chemistry, hydroboration refers to the addition of a hydrogen-boron bond to certain double and triple bonds involving carbon (, , , and ). This chemical reaction is useful in the organic synthesis of organic compounds. Hydroboration ...

s, and

catalytic Catalysis () is the increase in reaction rate, rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst ...

enantioselective In chemistry, stereoselectivity is the property of a chemical reaction in which a single reactant forms an unequal mixture of stereoisomers during a non- stereospecific creation of a new stereocenter or during a non-stereospecific transformation o ...

reactions based on bis-oxazoline (box)

ligand In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule with a functional group that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding with the metal generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's el ...

s. The Evans–Saksena reduction and Evans–Tishchenko reaction take their names from him. He is also well known for preparing a set of unpublished though widely disseminated lecture notes for Chemistry 206, a graduate-level organic chemistry course at Harvard.

Developing ChemDraw

The widely used chemical structure drawing software package

ChemDraw ChemDraw™ is a molecule editor and communication suite, for the management, reporting, and presentation of chemistry research and discoveries. ChemDraw was originally conceived in 1985 by Selena "Sally" Evans, her husband David A. Evans, and ...

was initially conceived by Evans and was developed by a graduate student, Stewart Rubenstein, with input from Evans, his wife Sally, and the Evans research group for the preparation of the group's manuscripts. ChemDraw was premiered in July 1985 at the

Gordon Research Conference Gordon Research Conferences are a group of international scientific conferences organized by a non-profit organization of the same name, since 1931 covering frontier research in the chemical, and physical and later biological Biology i ...

on Reactions & Processes in New Hampshire where Rubenstein and the Evanses demonstrated the new software during a break in the conference.

Awards and honors

* Elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

, 1984 * Elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, 1988 * Elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, 1992 * Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry & BioMedicinal Chemistry, 1998 *

Arthur C. Cope Award The Arthur C. Cope Award is a prize awarded for achievement in the field of organic chemistry research. It is sponsored by the Arthur C. Cope Fund, and has been awarded annually since 1973 by the American Chemical Society. It consists of $25,000, ...

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, 2000 *

The Ryoji Noyori Prize The Ryoji Noyori Prize was established by the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan in 2002 to commemorate Ryōji Noyori winning the 101st Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedis ...

, Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 2006 * Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods, 2007 * Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry,

, 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, David A. 1941 births 2022 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 21st-century American chemists Harvard University faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty Oberlin College alumni Scientists from Washington, D.C. Acacia members