Rachel Evans

Evans grew up in South Wales.^[3] She studied at Swansea University, earning a Master of Chemistry (MChem) degree in 2002.^[4][5] During her Masters, she completed an International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IASTE) fellowship at Lonza Group.^[3] She returned to Swansea University for her PhD, investigating on light-emitting materials for display technologies.^[6][4]

After her PhD, Evans spent a year at the University of Aveiro.^[4] She was subsequently awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Paris^[4] where she worked as a postdoc on fluorescence of soft materials.^[4] Evans left Paris to join the University of Coimbra as a Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia postdoctoral fellow. She moved to Trinity College Dublin in 2009, where she was a lecturer in Physical Chemistry. Her research was funded by Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.^[7] She delivered the 2011 Royal Society of Chemistry Schools lecture on the Chemistry of Light.^[8] In 2013 she published the textbook Applied Photochemistry with Springer Publishing.^[9] They explored self-assembly of conjugated polyelectrolyte–polyoxometalate networks, with dimensions controlled by the polymer chain length and steric charge distribution.^[10][11] The self-assembly of these lumophores can be used to tune the optical and electronic properties.^[12] To understand the morphology of these films and inform the design of performance nanostructured devices, her group use small-angle scattering, spectroscopy and microscopy.^[13][14] Small-angle scattering allows her to study the microstructure of hybrid materials at the near atomic scale.^[15] Their conjugated polyelectrolyte work was featured in the ChemComm Emerging Investigators issue.^[16] She also worked on oxygen sensitive printable ink sensors.^[17]

Evans has explored polymer-hybrid materials for luminescent solar concentrators.^[18] By controlling the placement and orientation of the lumophore, she showed that it is possible to limit light lost by reabsorption.^[19][20] She minimises waveguiding losses by designing materials with high refractive indices. She demonstrated that perylene carboxdiimide-bridged triethoxysilane can be covalently grafted to siloxane hybrids.^[18] Her work was featured in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C Emerging Investigators Issue in 2016.^[21] She also develops encapsulation techniques to improve device lifetime.^[22] She was made an associate professor in 2016. She collaborated extensively with the University of Montpellier as part of a French-Irish collaboration.^[23]

Evans was appointed a lecturer at the University of Cambridge in 2017^[3] and a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge.^[4] Her group explore soft materials that are responsive to stimuli, nanostructured inks and hybrid nanoparticles.^[24] The soft materials respond to light, using photoresponsive surfactants that include an azobenzene group.^[25] She was appointed chair of the Royal Society of Chemistry Photophysics and Photochemistry Group in 2017.^[26]

She founded Senoptica Technologies^[27] in 2018 and is the chief scientific officer (CSO) working on optical sensors developed in Evans' lab.^[28] Senoptica Technologies detect defective modified atmosphere packaging, changing colour to alert the consumer to the amount of oxygen in the pack.^[29]