Christopher Evans received his Ph.D. from Imperial College London, conducting his thesis research on endorphins and enkephalins, at the Medical Research Council Institute in Mill Hill. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, Dr. Evans joined the UCLA faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Science. His research accomplishments have included identification of a number of novel endogenous opioid peptides and the cloning of the first opioid receptor. Dr. Evans was Director of the UCLA Brain Research Institute from 2004-2017 and is the Stefan Hatos Professor directing the Shirley and Stefan Hatos Center for Neurophamacology in the UCLA Semel Institute. Dr. Evans is also director of a NIH-funded center - The Center for Opioid Receptors and Drugs of Abuse or CSORDA. CSORDA, with continuous NIH funding for over 30 years. The aims of CSORDA are to understand the action of opioid drugs such as morphine and heroin at the molecular, cellular and behavioral levels.