Lectures:
5:00 - 6:00 PM
2104 CHEM

Wednesday, October 30:
"Questioning Scientific Assumptions: Some Lessons in Divalent Lanthanide Chemistry"

Thursday, October 31:
"The Chemistry of a Molecule Thought to be Too Sterically Crowded to Exist: (C₅Me₅)₃Sm"

Friday, November 1:
"Lessons in Unexpected Organometallic Chemistry: Bent Metallocenes, Non-Classical Carbonium Ions, Carbonyls, and More"

William J. Evans was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1947. He received his B.S. degree in 1969 from the University of Wisconsin, where he did pentaborane research with Donald F. Gaines. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in the area of metallocarborane chemistry at UCLA in 1973 under the direction of M. Frederick Hawthorne. Evans subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Cornell University with the late Earl L. Muetterties. When Evans joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1975, he initiated a research program in an area entirely different from his training or experience: the chemistry of lanthanide elements. Although lanthanide chemistry was not popular at that time and the general view of these metals was that they were not worth studying, Evans felt that the special physical properties of these elements could lead to unique chemistry if the metals could be put in the proper coordination environments. This idea has been realized in many ways since 1975. After promotion to Associate Professor with tenure at Chicago in 1982, he moved to the University of California, Irvine, where he was appointed Professor in 1983. His research has shown from many different perspectives how the unique chemistry of the f elements can be utilized to broaden and expand chemistry.