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 Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. He was a prominent figure in the field of

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

and his research focused on

synthetic chemistry As a topic of chemistry, chemical synthesis (or combination) is the artificial execution of chemical reactions to obtain one or several product (chemistry), products. This occurs by physics, physical and chemical manipulations usually involving o ...

and

total synthesis Total synthesis is the complete chemical synthesis of a complex molecule, often a natural product, from simple, commercially-available precursors. It usually refers to a process not involving the aid of biological processes, which distinguishes i ...

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

aldol reaction The aldol reaction is a means of forming carbon–carbon bonds in organic chemistry. Discovered independently by the Russian chemist Alexander Borodin in 1869 and by the French chemist Charles-Adolphe Wurtz in 1872, the reaction combines two c ...

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

Early life and education

Evans was born on January 11, 1941, in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

He received his A.B. from Oberlin College in 1963, where he worked with Norman Craig. He began his graduate work at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

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

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

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 land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

, 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 1974. 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'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

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 conven ...

oxy-Cope rearrangement In organic chemistry, the oxy-Cope rearrangement is a chemical reaction. It involves reorganization of the skeleton of certain unsaturated alcohols. It is a variation of the Cope rearrangement in which 1,5-dien-3-ols are converted to unsaturated ca ...

s, 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 p ...

s, and

catalytic Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

enantioselective In chemistry, an enantiomer ( /ɪˈnænti.əmər, ɛ-, -oʊ-/ ''ih-NAN-tee-ə-mər''; from Ancient Greek ἐνάντιος ''(enántios)'' 'opposite', and μέρος ''(méros)'' 'part') – also called optical isomer, antipode, or optical anti ...

reactions based on bis-oxazoline (box)

ligand In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule ( 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 elec ...

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 first developed in 1985 by David A. Evans and Stewart Rubenstein (later by the cheminformatics company CambridgeSoft). The company was sold to PerkinElmer in the year 2011. ChemDraw, along with Chem3D and ChemFinde ...

was initially conceived of by Evans and was developed by 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 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, 1984 * Elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) 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, a ...

, 1988 * Elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 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 as well as the 60th anniversary of the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemist ...

Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

, 2006 * 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.