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. He was a prominent figure in the field of organic chemistry and his research focused on synthetic chemistry and total synthesis, particularly of large biologically active molecules. Among his best-known works is the development of aldol reaction methodology (for example, Evans' acyl oxazolidinone method).
Early life and education
Evans was born on January 11, 1941, in Washington, D.C. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1963, where he worked with Norman Craig. He began his graduate work at the University of Michigan with Robert E. Ireland, but moved with the Ireland group to the California Institute of Technology and received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1967. 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 He is also well known for preparing a set of unpublished though widely disseminated lecture notes for Chemistry 206, a graduate-level organic chemistry course at Harvard.
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Developing ChemDraw
The widely used chemical structure drawing software package ChemDraw 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 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, 1988
- Arthur C. Cope Award, American Chemical Society, 2000
- The Ryoji Noyori Prize, Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 2006
- Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry, American Chemical Society, 2013