He received a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969 where he did undergraduate research on pentaborane chemistry with Professor Donald F. Gaines.
He did postdoctoral research at Cornell University on the synthesis of transition metal phosphite complexes under the direction of Professor Earl L. Muetterties.
Among his recent accomplishments at UCI is the discovery of molecular species containing nine new rare earth and actinide oxidation states.
Evans initially examined metal vapor methods to make new classes of lanthanide complexes in the 0 oxidation state.
(C5Me5)2Sm was even more unusual in that it had a bent geometry instead of the parallel plane ferrocene-like structure expected for a simple ionic complex of a +2 ion with two large anionic cyclopentadienyl rings.
Subsequent studies of lanthanide-based dinitrogen reduction led to over forty crystallographically characterized examples of the formerly unprecedented planar M2(μ-η2:η2-N2) structures.
Evans' synthetic study of (C5Me5)2Sm led to the discovery a series of sterically crowded tris(pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) (C5Me5)3M complexes (M = rare earth and actinide).