Dr. Alan Evans

Dr. Alan Evans completed his PhD in biophysics at Leeds University in the UK, studying 3D protein folding. He spent five years at Atomic Energy of Canada as a PET physicist, and in 1984, he moved to the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill, where his research interests included multi-modal brain imaging with PET and MRI, structural network modeling, and large-scale brain databasing.

Dr. Evans has published 627 peer-reviewed papers and has held numerous leadership roles; notably Director of the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre (BIC) during the 1990s. He is a founding member of the International Consortium for Brain Mapping (ICBM), and was one of the founders of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), serving in numerous positions on the OHBM Council since 1995. He chaired the 4th International Conference on Human Brain Mapping in 1998 and was OHBM Chair for 2017-18. 

He has received many noteworthy awards and accolades over the course of his career, including:

• In 2003, he received a CIHR Senior Scientist Award;
• In 2014, he was awarded the national Margolese Prize for Research into Human Brain Disorders, the Vezina Prize for Québec Neuroradiology and recognition as a Highly Cited Scientist (top 1%) for Neuroscience and Behaviour;
• In 2015, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada;
• In 2016, he was awarded the Prix du Québec (Wilder Penfield) and ranked #6 by Science magazine in its list of most influential brain scientists of the modern era;
• In 2017, he was elected as Chair of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and awarded the Senate of Canada 150 Medal;
• In 2018, he was awarded the Heinz Lehmann Prize for services to Neuropsychopharmacology, the Victor Dadaleh Chair in Neurosciences and the Club de Recheches Clinique du Québec Mentorship Prize.

Dr. Evans is currently Co-Director of the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health; Scientific Director of McGill’s $84M CFREF project “Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives”; and Scientific Director of the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform. 

He headed the Data Coordinating Center for the National Institutes of Health-funded multi-center MRI Study of Normal Pediatric Development, and leads a grid-processing network, both nationally and internationally (CBRAIN). Dr. Evans is also the Founder of Biospective Inc., (www.biospective.com), a CRO that offers 3D image analysis for clinical/pre-clinical pharmaceutical studies.