chemistry

Rachel Evans

Rachel Evans is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rachel Evans rather than just read about it. In short: Rachel Claire Evans FLSW is a Welsh chemist based at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. She works on photoactive polymer-hybrid materials for solar devices, including organic photovoltaics and stimuli-responsive membranes.

Key takeaways

Rachel Evans belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rachel Evans to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rachel Evans from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rachel Claire Evans FLSW is a Welsh chemist based at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. She works on photoactive polymer-hybrid materials for solar devices, including organic photovoltaics and stimuli-responsive membranes.

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

Research and career After her PhD, Evans spent a year at the University of Aveiro. She was subsequently awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Paris where she worked as a postdoc on fluorescence of soft materials. 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. She delivered the 2011 Royal Society of Chemistry Schools lecture on the Chemistry of Light. In 2013 she published the textbook Applied Photochemistry with Springer Publishing. They explored self-assembly of conjugated polyelectrolyte–polyoxometalate networks, with dimensions controlled by the polymer chain length and steric charge distribution. The self-assembly of these lumophores can be used to tune the optical and electronic properties. To understand the morphology of these films and inform the design of performance nanostructured devices, her group use small-angle scattering, spectroscopy and microscopy. Small-angle scattering allows her to study the microstructure of hybrid materials at the near atomic scale. Their conjugated polyelectrolyte work was featured in the ChemComm Emerging Investigators issue. She also worked on oxygen sensitive printable ink sensors. Evans has explored polymer-hybrid materials for luminescent solar concentrators. By controlling the placement and orientation of the lumophore, she showed that it is possible to limit light lost by reabsorption. 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. Her work was featured in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C Emerging Investigators Issue in 2016. She also develops encapsulation techniques to improve device lifetime. She was made an associate professor in 2016. She collaborated extensively with the University of Montpellier as part of a French-Irish collaboration. Evans was appointed a lecturer at the University of Cambridge in 2017 and a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Her group explore soft materials that are responsive to stimuli, nanostructured inks and hybrid nanoparticles. The soft materials respond to light, using photoresponsive surfactants that include an azobenzene group. She was appointed chair of the Royal Society of Chemistry Photophysics and Photochemistry Group in 2017. She founded Senoptica Technologies in 2018 and is the chief scientific officer (CSO) working on optical sensors developed in Evans' lab. Senoptica Technologies detect defective modified atmosphere packaging, changing colour to alert the consumer to the amount of oxygen in the pack.

Awards and honours 2023 Elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW) 2018 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) 2018 Nominated a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM) 2017 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and Society of Chemical Industry UK Young Researchers Medal 2017 Learned Society of Wales Dillwyn Medal 2015 Trinity College Dublin Fellowship 2014 Irish Lab Awards Young Leader of the Year 2008 RSC Harry Hallam prize 2007 RSC Ronald Belcher Memorial Lectureship

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rachel Evans

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rachel Evans claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rachel Evans before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rachel Evans ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rachel Evans

In research: Rachel Evans appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rachel Evans in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rachel Evans is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Welsh scientists, 21st-century Welsh women scientists, Alumni of Swansea University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rachel Evans outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rachel Evans in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rachel Evans means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rachel Evans out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rachel Evans in simple terms?

Why does Rachel Evans matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rachel Evans?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rachel Evans.