Rate My Professor Ivana Evans

Professor Ivana Evans is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Durham University. Born in Belgrade, Serbia, she obtained her first degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Belgrade and her PhD in Chemistry from Oregon State University in 1999, supervised by Professor Art Sleight. After relocating to the UK, she served as a postdoctoral research associate in Professor Judith Howard's group in the Durham University Department of Chemistry. In 2005, she was awarded an independent RCUK Academic Fellowship. She was appointed Lecturer in Structural/Materials Chemistry in 2009, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2011, Reader in 2015, and Professor in 2019. Evans received the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre Prize for Younger Scientist Award in 2003.

Evans's research focuses on solid state chemistry and structure-property relationships of functional materials, employing techniques such as powder and single crystal X-ray and neutron diffraction, electron microscopy, solid state NMR, inelastic neutron scattering, impedance spectroscopy, and computational modeling including ab initio molecular dynamics. Her projects target new oxide ion conductors for solid oxide fuel cells, hydrogen-bonded organic functional materials involving short strong hydrogen bonds and proton migration, polymorphism of pharmaceutical solids, and applications of powder diffraction in archaeology and art conservation. Key publications include 'Oxide Ion Dynamics and Structure–Property Relationships in A₃OhTd₂O₇.₅ Ionic Conductors (A = Ba, Sr; Oh = Y; Td = Ga, Zn)' (Chemistry of Materials, 2025), 'Ionic Mobility in Energy Materials: Through the Lens of Quasielastic Neutron Scattering' (Chemistry of Materials, 2025), 'Dual ionic conductivity in Ba₃InGa₂O₇.₅: correlating structure and electrochemical properties' (Materials Advances, 2026), and 'On Sr₁₋ₓNaₓSiO₃₋₀.₅ₓ New Superior Fast Ion Conductors' (Chemistry of Materials, 2014). She chaired the Physical Crystallography Group of the British Crystallographic Association and the Structural Condensed Matter Physics Group of the Institute of Physics from 2011 to 2014, served on peer review panels for Diamond Light Source (2010-2014) and ISIS Diffraction (2015-2017), and is a member of the RSC Materials Chemistry Division Council, RSC Faraday Discussions Standing Committee, and IUCr Commission on Powder Diffraction. Her work has garnered over 4100 citations.