Prof. William J. Evans Visits CIAC

On August 9th, William J. Evans, Professor of University of California Irvine, visited Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC), and delivered a lecture entitled “The Importance of Questioning Scientific Assumptions: Lessons from Lanthanide and Actinide Chemistry”. The lecture is one of “Lecture Series on Polymer Science” initiated by the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemsitry. The lecture session was presided by Jing Xiabin, Professor of CIAC, who also awarded Prof. William J. Evans the certificate of CIAC Guest Professorship during the lecture. More than 70 CIAC scientists and graduate students attended the lecture.

In the lecture, Prof. Evans started with the remarks from two of his favorite books, in order to illustrate the importance of breaking stereotypes in scientific research. Subsequently, he presented recent research results in f-block element chemistry, which showed that our research work should not be limited to the “rules” of an area. He also introduced several new ways of doing reductive-oxidative chemistry including multi-electron reductions, as well as the synthesis of a growing class of organometallic complexes, all of which challenged the previous ideas and proved that even in deeply studied areas, potential for new chemistry should not be underestimated.

More About Prof. William J. Evans

William J. Evans received his B.S. degree in 1973 from the University of Wisconsin, and obtained his Ph.D degree in the area of metallocarborane chemistry at UCLA in 1975. Evans subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Cornell University. In 1975, Evans joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, and moved to the University of California, Irvine in 1982, where he was appointed Professor a year later. His research has shown from many different perspectives how the unique chemistry of the f-block elements can be utilized to broaden and expand chemistry.